


leave the light on

by sabrinachill



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake Marriage, Happy Ending, M/M, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, inaccurate depiction of therapy, these two have the communication skills of guppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 36,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: “Explain it to me again — why do we need to pretend to be married?”It’s a question Michael knew was coming, but not one he has a good answer for. Not yet. Maybe not ever.He cuts his eyes away from the road to steal a glance at the passenger’s seat for the seventeenth time in the past hour; the view is the same as always. Alex, frowning so deeply his entire face is drooping downward, his dark hair dancing in the wind that whips through the windows as he stares at the simple silver band circling his ring finger.Its twin sits on Michael’s hand.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 668
Kudos: 561





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here we go, pals. This one’s a little different — it’s a serial based on a set of prompts that will post daily for the next 30 days.
> 
> Title is from both “Back to You” by John Mayer and the Motel 6 slogan. Takes a hard left turn away from canon sometime vaguely around 2x05 (Max is alive again, Michael and Maria are definitely not back together). 
> 
> Okay let’s have some fun!

“Explain it to me again — why do we need to pretend to be married?”

It’s a question Michael knew was coming, but not one he has a good answer for. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

He cuts his eyes away from the road to steal a glance at the passenger’s seat for the seventeenth time in the past hour; the view is the same as always. Alex, frowning so deeply his entire face is drooping downward, his dark hair dancing in the wind that whips through the windows as he stares at the simple silver band circling his ring finger.

Its twin sits on Michael’s hand.

He keeps feeling the press of it between his skin and the steering wheel of the rental car, distracted by the way the sunlight catches the metal and makes it shine.

At times, it seems to be _blinding._

“Well,” Michael starts, voice a little rough, “we’re following up on the latest lead you found in the stolen Caulfield files. Some remote branch of Project Shepherd that was apparently functioning until the late ‘80s, so there might still be something there. A new lead, or bit of information, or someone who remembers something useful…"

“Yeah, Guerin, I remember all that,” Alex says, droll sarcasm on full display, “but why do we have to be _married_?”

The truth sits in Michael’s throat, fully formed and ready to be spoken, because he hates secrets and this is the only one left between them now.

(Except maybe it’s not a secret; maybe it’s the most obvious thing in the world.)

Either way, he swallows it back down, trying not to choke on the words as they fight to claw their way out.

He chooses easier ones instead.

“Because it’s a fancy hotel now, and our cover is attending the expensive couple’s retreat they’re holding this weekend — which seems like the kind of thing you’d have to be really serious about somebody to do.” He shrugs, trying to smile but knowing he’s failing, his expression feeling like something closer to a grimace. “Nothing says serious like ‘til death do we part.’”

Alex doesn’t respond; the car falls silent again except the quiet rumble of the engine and rush of the wind.

None of this should be happening. It shouldn’t be the two of them, digging deeper into the shared trauma of their families’ past while pretending to be the happy, functional version of the couple they never really were. It’s too much, too many live grenades to juggle, too many elephants in the room to ignore.

But it’s also a game of emotional chicken and neither of them is prepared to blink.

Not two weeks ago when Michael first suggested this ridiculous plan, not when they booked the plane tickets or landed in Atlanta or even once on the two hour drive northeast.

The road rises and falls as it winds its way around the foothills of the Appalachians, the dappled sunlight streaming through fresh spring leaves painting the world in hues of green and gold. Everything is so lush; it’s verdant, vibrantly alive. After a life spent in the sparse, stark desert it seems outrageous to Michael, like the plants are boasting about the obscene amount of water and nutritious soil available.

They’re thriving, instead of simply struggling to survive; Michael wishes the same transformation could somehow happen for him, too.

A few more miles and then the hotel appears suddenly, bursting into view after one final switchback. It rises out of the surrounding forest like a storybook castle, a collection of moss-covered stacked stone and vines trailing up logs hewn by hand and stacked half a century before Michael even crashed into this rock.

It’s romantic as _fuck_.

Michael sighs, rolling his eyes to the sky in a silent, reflexive plea for help, for salvation, for the spontaneous appearance of an alien escape pod hovering above him.

But nothing comes. It never does.

So he drives on, crushing freshly fallen dogwood blossoms beneath the tires, and rubs at his chin with his left hand.

His wedding ring catches as it rolls across the stubble on his jaw; he yanks his hand away and slaps it back on the wheel, squeezing hard enough to bleach his knuckles white. 

Shit shit _shit._ This weekend is going to be _impossible._

Beside him, Alex shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat as if to speak — but something stops him, or changes his mind. He stays silent.

In fact, neither of them say a word until after Guerin has pulled up to the elaborate entrance and a bellhop has loaded their bags on a luggage cart while a valet drives their nondescript rental car off to the parking lot tucked discreetly down the hill.

“You two here for the retreat?”

The bellhop has a bland, pleasant smile to go with his bland, pleasant voice and absolutely zero idea what a minefield that simple question poses for Michael.

“Yes,” Alex answers for them, cool and collected as always, reaching over to lace his fingers through Michael’s.

The touch rocks through him, tiny electrical currents buzzing up his nerves, and he tries to memorize the exact feel of Alex’s fingertips pressing into the back of his hand, how tightly he holds on, how strong it makes him feel.

And then Alex leads them into the hotel, smoothly giving their aliases and making polite small talk with the front desk clerk that checks them in. He even manages to smile at Michael with something approximating happiness when she tells them that their registration in the retreat entitles them to the “romance package” in their suite.

Michael just clings to Alex’s hand like a balloon on a string, his attention drifting to the enormous lobby around them. It smells fresh and faintly of pine, which makes sense given that the floors, walls, and ceiling all seem to be made of the stuff. It creaks charmingly as people walk across the old boards; the knotholes form constellations all around them.

But the real star is the stone fireplace in the center of the room, large enough that Michael could stand inside without stooping, the chimney soaring to the vaulted ceiling high above.

Michael falls in love with it immediately; Alex seems wholly unaffected.

His bland pleasantries continue as they’re handed their room keys and directed to the antique elevator, bellhop on their heels.

There does, however, seem to be the smallest of catches in his breath when they open the door to their room — a warm, welcoming suite with a king-sized bed covered in red rose petals, a flickering wood-burning stove in one corner, and a bucket of champagne chilling beside the jacuzzi tub. Beyond a set of closed French doors is a private balcony with comfortable-looking chairs and dramatic views of the forested mountains and valley down below.

Michael is immediately struck with half a dozen vivid scenarios of Alex spread out on every single piece of furniture, naked and sweaty and tangled up with him.

Alex, however, gives no indication that he’s thinking the same.

He lets go of Michael’s hand and it’s only afterward, when Michael’s feeling the loss like a phantom limb, that he realizes they’ve never done that before. Held hands in public, walked around together like an actual _couple_ and not cared who knew it. No secrets, no shame; Michael glances down at his healed hand and spreads his fingers wide, then curls them up toward his palm.

It feels like it’s on fire, and Michael wants to let it burn.

The bellhop leaves their bags; Alex subtly tips him and pulls the door softly shut after he goes.

And now it’s just the two of them in this room, alone, for the entire retreat. Alex is unpacking, carefully not looking at Michael, or the bed, or anything, really.

Michael can’t _stop_ looking. Imagining. Dreaming. Hoping.

For the first time, he lets himself admit it: this was a truly terrible idea.

Because he is absolutely, totally, and irreversibly _fucked._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being here! If you leave a comment, rest assured that I will read it 494727 times and possibly tattoo it on my forehead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys... I just, I love you guys. Thank you for such a positive response to this bit of silliness - you made my day. ❤️

“We’re going to be late if we don’t leave like 5 minutes ago.”

Alex, standing in front of the mirror, straightens his collar and brushes a stray lock of hair from his forehead; Michael, still wearing his dusty boots, sprawls out in the center of the bed drinking straight from the champagne bottle. 

It’s 11:30 in the morning and he’s halfway to drunk, but at least the booze has him feeling much better about this whole scenario. So what if he’s stuck in the most romantic place he’s ever seen while pretending to be married to the love of his life. Could be fun. Right?

 _Right_?

“Alex, why do you care if we’re late for the—“ Michael checks the printed activity schedule they’d been given upon check-in, “—couples’ hike and picnic lunch?” He drops the paper and it flutters to the dark rug like a wounded bird. “As you have been reminding me nonstop since we got on the plane, we’re not actually a couple. None of this is real.”

He punctuates this statement with a dramatic sweep of the bottle, followed by a generous swig; the bubbles are still fizzing in the back of his throat when Alex stalks over and snatches the champagne away. 

“We have to be here in order to access their files and ascertain what took place in this facility, or what is maybe, despite all appearances to the contrary, _still_ taking place here. In order to do that, we have to maintain our cover — a big part of which is partaking in the scheduled couples’ activities.”

Michael hooks his thumbs under his shining silver belt buckle. “We could just stay up here and pretend to bang. That’s a ‘couple’s activity.’”

Alex just stares at him. To Michael’s sloshed brain, it doesn’t even look like he blinks — like he's suddenly transformed into a robot version of Alex in power-saving mode. All external functions are momentarily offline. 

(It never occurs to him that Alex might be considering his offer.)

“Alright, fine,” Michael says with a sigh, giving in because it’s Alex so of _course_ he’s giving in, “but just remember — this whole participation thing was _your_ idea.”

He winks and saunters out the door.

Alex waits a second or two until eventually following, eyeing him warily.

But Michael stands a careful distance away, whistling softly to himself, as they ride the elevator down to the lobby. He’s polite, and he’s careful; he can see the second that Alex relaxes the tiniest fraction, like he believes they might get through this first activity without incident. 

Then the elevator dings as the doors slide open and it might as well be the opening bell of a boxing match, because Michael launches an _attack_.

He wraps an arm around Alex’s waist as they step into the lobby, pulling him in flush against his side, fingertips toying with Alex’s soft cotton shirt and slowly rucking it up until he can reach bare skin. He smiles in smug satisfaction at the tiny hitch in Alex’s breath when his fingertips dip just beneath the waistband of his pants, skimming over the hot skin stretched over the hard muscle along his hip. 

Alex freezes for a second, but Michael knows his instincts have been honed in battle; he’s not going to back down.

And sure enough, retaliation begins almost immediately —and he fights to _win._

Alex slides his hand into the back pocket of Michael’s jeans, firmly cupping his ass, and Michael stumbles and nearly twists an ankle trying to walk across the lobby. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Alex grin as he _squeezes_ a little; Michael grits his teeth and clenches his muscles against Alex's palm. 

At least a dozen other couples are milling around the lobby waiting for the event to start, but Alex and Michael are so busy aggressively trying to one-up each other in their private PDA war (Alex is now _nibbling_ on Michael’s _earlobe_ what the absolute _fuck_ ) that no one dares approach them. Even the intrusively cheerful organizer, a woman named Barbara with hair that approximates that of Bozo the Clown’s, simply hands them a packed picnic basket and a map of available hiking trails before turning to talk to the next couple in line. 

So off they go. 

The day is warm and breezy, bright with the blossom of spring. Beneath their feet, old and forgotten fall leaves crumble to pieces and sink into the damp earth.

The trail is wide and flat and well-maintained but, for obvious reasons, they don’t hike very far. There’s a spot just down the hill where the forest clears enough to give them a view of the lake in the valley below, the water dark blue, sunlight glinting off ripples in the surface. By silent agreement they head off the path and into the clearing, Michael spreading their blanket over a patch of young, bright green spring grass.

(And maybe he uses his powers to make it a little easier for Alex to get down to the ground, and maybe Alex appreciates both the assistance and Michael’s thoughtfulness, but neither one acknowledges it.)

“So...” Michael starts, the exercise having burned the alcohol away from his brain, leaving him as awkward and confused as before. 

“We should eat,” Alex says, in that take-charge military voice that Michael finds equal parts irritating and titillating. 

“Right, yeah, eating. I guess that is the point of a picnic and all.”

They pull out fruit salad and chips and premade sandwiches — fancy five-star variations made with artisanal ingredients that neither of them can properly identify — and dig in. 

It’s quiet enough that Michael can hear Alex chew.

The silence should be comforting — no sounds of traffic or planes overhead; none of the artificial irritants of society. Out here it’s just breeze rustling through leaves and birds singing to the sky; in the distance there’s the small scrabbling sounds of squirrels playing in the underbrush. 

Life, all around. 

But Michael doesn’t care about any of it. 

In the ringing silence he’s overwhelmed with how much he just wants to hear _Alex_ , for them to talk, to _really_ talk, or hell, even just laugh or make some snarky comment — for anything. 

But Alex just keeps munching on his lunch. 

He looks like he belongs here, in his soft, forest green henley and brown hiking boots, dark Ray-Bans hiding his eyes. 

Michael, on the other hand, is pretty sure he looks exactly like what he is: a broke, borderline-alcoholic mechanic with grease on his jeans and holes in the collar of his shirt, hair wild in the humid air. 

The only things that tie them together are the hammered metal rings on their fingers, and that’s all Michael’s fault. He’d made them himself in a fit of sentimentality out of a bit of scrap metal he’d found at Sander’s. He’d spent hours shaping and welding and polishing and even engraving the inside of the bands — little stars and music notes floating all around.

When he’d noticed, Alex’s only comment had been one raised eyebrow. 

“Wow, you guys got a great spot!” 

Barbara the Coordinator appears on the hiking trail, squinting as she stares over at them; the sun shining through her red hair makes it look as if her head is on fire. “But where’s all that affection from the lobby? You’re on opposite corners of that blanket.”

_None of your damn business_ , Michael thinks, scowling, but Alex just paints on that bland smile again. 

“Just getting settled in and enjoying this lovely meal.”

And then Michael's scowl slowly flips to an overly broad smile, mischief sparking behind his eyes. 

“But, _sweetie_ , don’t you think we can enjoy each other at the same time?”

He’s practically purring and doesn’t give Alex a chance to protest before he takes a strawberry from the fruit salad and feeds it to Alex with his bare hands. Alex’s hot, wet mouth closes around the tip of his thumb for a brief moment, red juice running in a tiny trail over his chin. 

Alex swallows and stares at him, mouth parted, eyes unreadable behind the sunglasses. The strawberry juice sparkles in the sun, one fat drop caught in the dip beneath his lip. 

It glistens and shines; it practically _calls_ to him.

So Michael shifts just that tiniest bit closer and gently swipes it with his thumb— 

—and then he forgets about the strawberry juice altogether. He forgets about Barbara and the mission, he forgets the fake wedding bands and the picnic and his own _name_ — because all he knows is that the feel of Alex’s full lip under the pad of his finger is more than he can bear.

And he’s leaning in for a kiss before he can stop himself. 

It shouldn't mean anything; they've done it a hundred times before. A _thousand_ times. Doing it now is good for their cover, and besides — he's keeping this kiss simple. Light and soft, just a tenuous press of their lips, over practically as soon as it begins. 

So why is the warm touch of Alex’s skin a lingering heat against his mouth? Why does he feel punch-drunk from the strawberry juice that’s now on both their tongues? Why does the blood thrumming through his veins feel like it's searing his quickened heart and why is electricity snapping at every single one of his nerves? 

And why is Alex lowering his sunglasses to reveal eyes so dark and burning; why is his hand drifting slowly up Michael’s thigh?

Someone wolf-whistles and the sound pierces the moment; it quickly deflates and drifts away. 

“That’s more like it!” Barbara calls.

Alex blinks, rapidly, and has to swallow before speaking. “Right,” he calls back, forcing a smile that stretches those pink lips. “That’s us. Simply crazy about each other.”

Michael just groans, so softly he doesn’t think even Alex hears it, and flings himself back on the blanket. He squeezes his eyes shut, but there’s no escape. 

His skin is still on fire; he’s boiling from the inside out and it’s got nothing to do with the way the sun blazes down on him, raising a flush on his skin and staining the inside of his eyelids a brilliant burnt orange. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for a little of Alex’s perspective...

“Come on,” Michael says with a teasing grin, “give me one good reason not to jump in the lake.”

The sun is high overhead, painting them in brilliant, blinding gold. Spring has erupted on the mountaintop; the dogwood tree above them is a riot of clean white flowers, every gentle breeze sending petals drifting down onto their picnic blanket. One has lodged itself in Michael’s curls, another rests on the cuff of Alex’s sleeve.

Alex could tell him the truth — that he’s barely holding it together under this whole marital pretense. That the wedding band Michael gave him feels like it’s burning straight down to the bone; that even when he inevitably has to take it off, he’s certain the scar of it will be seared into his  _soul_.

And that if he has to endure a wet, half-naked Michael swimming in the lake it will be more torture than he ever suffered in the war.

“Maybe because we’re supposed to be  _ working _ ,” he says instead, privately pleased at how even and bland his voice sounds, “not wasting time swimming around in questionably murky bodies of water.”

“We’re not working right now. In fact, you said there’s nothing we can do until tonight.”

Alex frowns. “You’ll get your phone wet.”

“I don’t even have it with me.”

“Fine, then you’ll get your pants wet.”

“I’ll take them off.”

Alex blinks a little too much. “Then you’ll be committing public indecency.”

“Oh, darlin’, there’s  _ nothing  _ indecent about what I’ve got under these pants.” Michael tilts his head at Alex, a slow smile spreading across his face. “But then, you already know that.”

He doesn’t give Alex another chance to speak, tugging off his boots and socks and then climbing to his feet. Alex can’t tear his eyes away from Michael’s nimble fingers undoing his belt buckle, a sight he’s seen so many times before that it evokes some kind of Pavlovian response from his dick, half-hard before Michael’s fly is even unzipped. 

And, because Michael is clearly a demon sent from hell to torture Alex’s soul, he takes his time shimmying out of his jeans, peeling the denim off his muscular thighs, letting them pool around his ankles before kicking them playfully at Alex.

Alex holds the still-warm fabric to his chest and tries to slow his pounding heart. Because no matter how real it might feel, he knows Michael’s flirtation is meaningless — either simple reflexive impulse or just part of their cover. 

Michael had been very clear that night a few months back: He wants to be good for someone. He doesn’t think that person could ever be Alex. 

And then he’d chosen someone else. 

That relationship had crashed and burned before it had ever really gotten off the ground, but it doesn’t change the fact that Michael’s answer to Alex was a resounding  _no_.

A word Alex has no choice but to accept.

So he watches Michael jog away from him now, boxers clinging low on his hips, curls bouncing with every step. Alex loses the details little by little as he runs farther away until he’s just the idea of Michael, an abstract work of art; then he’s splashing through the shallows and diving in and he’s gone completely, disappeared beneath the deep blue.

It feels for a second like Alex imagined it would when Michael inevitably decided to leave the planet, disappearing into the blue sky instead. 

But then he resurfaces and the vise on Alex’s heart loosens; Michael’s splashing around and floating on his back and as loose and carefree as Alex has ever seen him. 

Maybe this trip isn’t such a bad idea after all. 

Of course, Alex changes his mind a few minutes later when Michael climbs out of the water dripping, sunlight sparkling off the droplets that spray through the air as he rakes his fingers back through his hair, the water making it appear darker against his skin. It’s still early spring and he’s not quite as tan as usual, but it just makes his eyes and stubble and chest hair stand out more; Alex can’t seem to close his mouth or draw a full breath.

And then Michael is walking toward him, leaving footprints in the soft grass, and he doesn’t stop and he’s suddenly close enough that he’s eclipsing the sun and leaning over Alex, still seated on the blanket, and Alex wonders if he’s hallucinating or maybe dead because Michael is wrapping one hand behind his neck and placing the softest kiss on his lips. 

The lake water clinging to his mouth feels like an oasis and Alex doesn’t even care that it’s dripping all over him, he’s just kissing back and letting himself believe that this is  _real_ , that Michael  _wants_ this and then Michael kisses his way across his jaw until his lips are brushing over that sensitive skin beneath his ear.

“Someone has been watching us from the top of the hill.”

Alex’s burning blood turns to sludge. 

Of course Michael is acting this way; he’s keeping up the pretense. 

It  _was_ Alex’s idea, after all. 

“Voyeur or spy?” Alex murmurs in response, Michael still kissing his neck as an excuse for them to speak without being overheard. 

“No way to know,” Michael whispers, his face moving so close that their lips brush against one another when he speaks. “But until we find out, we’re going to have to be extra careful.”

“Well then,” Alex says and indulges himself in another kiss. 

After all, if he’s descending into hell, he might as well enjoy the ride. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thanks for being here! Just wanted to let you know that while the daily posting schedule (and my crippling social anxiety) make it virtually impossible to respond to your comments in a meaningful way, each one is read and greatly appreciated (and maybe hugged tightly to my chest, don’t judge me.) ❤️

“How have you made it this long without someone throwing you out an airlock or something?”

Michael is lying face-down in a diagonal sprawl across the bed, voice slightly muffled by a pillow. He’s frustrated, annoyed, and ready to snap.

And he’s not the only one.

From the second they went back to their room everything changed. Without the excuse of putting on a show, the fuzzy feelings from the picnic have hardened and turned brittle with annoyance; Alex’s fingers have been tapping on the table over and over again in a repeating rhythm. He claims he’s trying to work out the chorus of the song he’s been writing in his head all day, but Michael’s pretty sure it’s a directed attack against him.

After all, Alex is a professional-grade battle strategist.

“Because,” Alex answers, speaking over the sound of his still-tapping fingers, “airlocks are not a thing in the Air Force. Just because it has the word ‘air’ in it doesn’t mean it falls under my purview.” He taps out another quick rhythm, a smile teasing at the corner of his lips. “And, even if they _were_ a thing, I wouldn’t get thrown out of one. Most people find me _delightful_.”

Michael snorts, lifting his face out of the pillow and propping himself on his elbows. “Most people are idiots.”

Alex’s fingers pause just long enough to make sure Michael’s paying attention. “You’re the one that actually _did_ get thrown out of a spaceship, you know.”

Michael pushes up onto his knees on the edge of the bed, hands raised in a gesture somewhere between surrender and absolute what-the-fuck. “It was a _crash_.”

Alex shrugs. “Just saying.”

And then he starts tapping again.

So Michael launches himself off the bed and crosses the room in four long strides, slapping his hand over the top of Alex’s until it’s pinned flat and motionless against the tabletop like a spider beneath a shoe.

“Can we just get back to discussing the plan now, please?”

Alex doesn’t speak until Michael moves his hand; if Michael didn’t know better he’d swear Alex’s breath had lost its rhythm, like he couldn’t fully inhale with Michael’s calloused palm pressed against his skin.

“The plan is that I go into the manager’s office and copy the hard drives in the middle of the night,” Alex says, sounding as calm and prepared as ever. “We eat breakfast, we check out, we’re happily divorced and back in Roswell by dinner time.”

Michael frowns, but it feels like something closer to a wince; the word _divorce_ had landed like a physical blow. “That doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”

Alex shrugs one shoulder, casual. “Because it doesn’t need to be one. There’s virtually no security at this hotel, no visible red flags, nothing that indicates it has any link to its historical purpose.”

“What about whoever was watching us at the lake earlier?”

“Probably just some perv. The only crime I’ve seen any evidence of here is an overpriced minibar.”

He taps his fingers again, this time against the side of the table; his ring sounds different when it strikes the wood, throwing the melody off.

And Alex stops suddenly, flexing his fingers in midair like he’d just thrown a punch. “I’m pretty sure this whole thing is pointless.”

Michael walks to the balcony, spinning his wedding band around and around his finger, the metal warm against his skin. The picnic kisses are like distant memories already; not even the ghost of them remains on his mouth.

“Yeah. Pointless.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to frenziedblaze, who saw this coming from a mile away.

“...And that’s how I ended up standing naked on the Brooklyn Bridge on Christmas Eve,” Michael finishes with a grin.

“Well, not entirely naked,” Alex clarifies. “There was a strategically placed Santa hat.”

The couples seated at their table laugh and giggle and blush. Several lean back in their chairs but one or two lean _forward_ , a little too intrigued at the idea of Michael’s body on full display.

The truth is that it’s not even Michael’s story. It was a crazy stunt one of Alex’s Air Force buddies had pulled; Alex told Michael about it half-drunk and completely naked in Michael’s bed while home on leave six years ago.

But Michael tells it in a charming manner, smoothly making small talk in a way he must have picked up at Isobel’s countless galas and fundraisers over the past decade.

The Guerin that Alex first met would have never bothered to put forth the energy.

He’s shocked that Michael even remembers that silly story, that he held onto the details and was able to twist the events just enough that it becomes an endearing tale of a couple in love on an adventurous vacation. Something to bolster their cover, something that makes them seem _real_.

Michael has been doing that kind of thing all evening. He’d made polite conversation with other couples through the tedium of a meet-and-greet cocktail hour; he’d showcased proper table manners during the four-course dinner. (Alex can’t remember a single thing he ate, too distracted by the view of Michael’s striking profile against the dining room’s solid glass wall, the sun setting behind the Blue Ridge Mountains painting the sky and his skin in streaks of deep violet and vivid pink.) He’d even pretended to pay attention to the incredibly boring introductory session speaker.

Alex can’t decide if it’s freaking him out or turning him on.

But then Michael keeps _touching_ Alex casually, easily, like this is something they’ve done every day for a decade.

Like it’s simple, like it’s not affecting him at all.

And part of Alex wants to lean into it and let the feeling curl up, warm and loved and cherished in his chest, and just ignore the other part of him. The part that knows none of it means anything at all.

That part wants to light something on _fire_.

He spent the afternoon irritating Michael on purpose, trying desperately to snap the spell that seemed to have been cast over them both since the second they stepped foot on this stupid mountain.

He'd thought it had worked. He'd thought he might survive this retreat after all.

But then they’d gotten dressed for dinner, and he realized he'd never stood a chance.

(He’d had no idea Michael even _owned_ a shirt that still had all its buttons and not a single grease stain; when he’d seen him walk out of the steamy bathroom wearing a tie and aftershave and a properly fitted black _suit_ his face had nearly melted off.)

And then they were downstairs and posing as a couple at something like a modern day _ball_ , complete with good food and wine and candlelight. Michael had kissed him a total of eleven times by dessert, a fact Alex can’t seem to forget no matter how hard he tries. And there was affection and warmth and so much _touching_ that Alex’s head is spinning—

—And it whirls to a dizzying degree once they’re back in the room and staring down that damned bed.

It’s been turned down invitingly, the blanket folded and pillows fluffed. A cozy fire is burning merrily in the fireplace.

And Michael starts kicking off his shoes and peeling his jacket from his shoulders like it’s nothing, like it won’t send Alex’s wounded heart into full-on cardiac arrest to sleep next to him in their underwear.

“You can have the bed,” Alex says, already moving a pillow to the painfully small couch on the far side of the suite. “I have to get up at 3 to sneak into the office — and then, with any luck, we’ll be back in our own beds tomorrow.”

And Alex isn’t looking at him, _can’t_ look at him, but from the corner of his eye he can see Michael’s curls bounce as he shakes his head before crossing the room in a few careful steps, gently stilling Alex’s movements with a hand on his wrist.

(It’s so warm and big and _strong_ , his fingers putting the exact right amount of pressure on Alex’s skin, the edge of his wedding band deliciously sharp.)

“We’re both adults here, Alex. We can share the bed.” Michael rubs his thumb in a tiny circle over Alex’s pounding pulse point and smiles a little, wryly. “Won’t be the first time.”

His tie is unknotted and his shirt is half unbuttoned, the white cuffs loose around the bones of his wrists.

Alex stares at them while he inhales deeply, then lets it go in a slow, controlled breath. “Which is why I just think it could get…complicated.”

“Right,” Michael scoffs, fingers moving down Alex’s left hand to touch the silver ring that feels like an anchor, that feels like wings, that feels like a thousand things except what he wants it to feel like — _reality._ “Because it’s not already complicated as all hell.”

Alex swallows, thickly, incapable of giving any sort of answer that’s real.

Instead, he simply pulls his hand out of Michael’s and says, “All right then. As long as you think we can handle it.”

Which is how he winds up in a t-shirt and boxers, hugging the left side of a king-sized bed, eleven inches of cold sheet all that separates him from Michael’s bare chest.

And, as much as Michael was right — this is hardly the first time they’ve shared a bed — it _is_ the first time they’ve done so without sex, without touching, without pleasure bowing Alex’s spine and sparks exploding behind his eyes, without the distraction from the strangely _more_ intimate act of simply lying in the dark and listening to each other breathe.

It would be so easy to reach out, to rest his palm on Michael’s chest, feel the even rhythm of his heartbeat and use it to steady his own—

But then Michael shifts a little beside him and the sheet slides against Alex’s arm with the movement; it feels like a lick of flame over his skin.

He can’t handle this in half-measures. When it comes to Michael, he’s an addict; moderation is impossible.

And Michael has told him no.

So Alex sighs and turns away, facing the alarm clock with its glowing red numbers on the bedside table, resigning himself to watching them steadily climb to 3.


	6. Chapter 6

“Ow, what was that for?”

Michael’s slowly surfacing from sleep, voice still thick and muffled; he runs his hand over the spot on his ribs where Alex’s elbow just assaulted him.

“You’re snoring, and your cold feet are freezing mine.”

Right. Only one bed, and the agreement that they’d share it but not touch. Michael feels like he’s been dunked in frigid water and then tossed into a snowbank, the pleasant warmth of sleep turning into stinging frostbite.

The room is still dark, just varying degrees of black and darkest gray. His eyes take in the few shapes revealed in the LED light of the alarm clock and the weak moonlight creeping around the edges of the blackout curtains. Doorways, chairs, his suitcase in one corner and the fireplace, long since burned down to ash, in another — but he can’t see Alex. His form is lost to the darkness that envelops them.

It doesn’t matter.

Michael knows exactly where he is; he always knows.

And right now the tiny stretch of empty sheet between them might as well be the cold, dark infinity of interstellar space.

“Is that why you almost never stayed when we slept together? Because of my snoring and cold feet?”

Michael doesn’t mean to ask the question out loud; maybe he’s more tired than he realized. And now the words hang heavy in air that suddenly feels so still and fragile, a crystalline spiderweb spun through the blackness between them.

He’s been fighting saying anything serious until they can get through this mission, until they have more information on this facility or reach a dead end in their investigation (or are at least safely back home, where he can drink himself into a stupor and cry in the privacy of his Airstream if Alex’s answer isn’t what he wants to hear.)

But now that he’s actually put it into words, that he’s spoken the tiniest fraction of what’s been buzzing at a deafening decibel in his head and heart, it almost feels _good_. Like he’s releasing a pressure valve on the tension that’s been building since they arrived.

But Alex must not agree.

Because his only answer is silence for so long that Michael wonders if he’s fallen back asleep; Alex doesn’t so much as shift his weight on the mattress beside him.

“I don’t know that now is the best time to get into that, Guerin,” he finally says, quiet and even and careful.

Michael _hates_ it.

“Right, because why would we discuss anything real when we’re having such a great time faking it all?”

Alex sighs, that long, slow exhale that means he’s holding all the words Michael _actually_ wants to hear ransom. Michael would gladly pay it, would do whatever it takes to free them, to know what Alex really thinks and feels about him — but he’s never been able to guess the price.

“This, all of this, is just a mission,” Alex says. “A blip in the radar of our lives, and tomorrow we’ll be back in Roswell and back to normal. There’s no need to ruin that with something impulsive here.”

Michael doesn’t even know where to start with that; he feels like Alex drove a sword straight through his chest and pinned him to the bed. Just a mission? A blip? And talking would _ruin_ it?

He needs to break something, or scream, or get a drink or pick a fight or be literally anywhere else, doing anything else except spending one more second in this soft, comfortable bed with the man that he’s loved since he was seventeen years old.

All Manes men torture aliens, apparently. They just use different tactics.

“Fine,” he finally manages to grind out from between his clenched teeth. “Tell me about tonight’s _mission_ , then.”

In answer, Alex springs from the bed as if he’d been zapped with a cattle prod; Michael, conversely, feels as if it were made of weighty wet concrete that’s holding him firmly in place. He blinks and Alex is already on the far side of the room, tugging on his pants and buttoning up a shirt.

“It will be easy,” Alex says, talking fast, clearly relieved by the subject change. “Anything of interest to us will probably be stored on the hotel manager’s computer. I checked the blueprints, and the door to the manager’s office is right behind the front desk.” He snaps on a desk lap; Michael squints against the sudden illumination. “I was originally going to wait until 3, but it should be late enough now. It’ll be safer if I go on my own — I know exactly where I’m going and exactly what I have to do.”

He hesitates for half a second, as if unsure whether he should bother saying the next part. “I promise,” he eventually adds, voice infinitesimally softer, “I’ll be completely fine.”

Michael stares across the room in the low light. He hasn’t bothered to leave the bed but at some point he’d sat up a little, propped up against the headboard and pillows, the sheet pooling around his bare waist.

Alex just stares back at him, steady and even.

Michael has no choice but to let him go; he’s pretty sure he’s _never_ had any other choice.

“Be safe.”

He’s proud; his voice doesn’t break at all.


	7. Chapter 7

_“I’ve got everything under control.”_

That’s what Alex had told him at 2:18 when he’d left the room.

And Michael had believed him — Alex Manes is by far the most capable human he’s ever met — but he doesn’t like how long it’s taken. Forty-two minutes of silence, of pacing this suddenly much-too-small suite, of his heart beating faster than he’d like, of acid churning in his stomach and something clawing its way up his throat.

Another minute clicks by on the clock and Michael’s yanking on his pants and shoving his feet into his boots, not bothering to fully button the shirt he tosses on before slipping out into the silent hallway.

He studied the blueprints along with Alex before they’d ever left Roswell; he knows exactly where the manager’s office is located. But if something has gone wrong it might be too risky to take the elevators, to announce his presence in the lobby with a ding and slide of doors. So he climbs down the four flights of stairs as quietly and quickly as possible, certain that his hammering heart is screaming at everyone within a mile-wide radius.

It’s been Michael’s experience that large buildings are some degree of creepy at night, even the smallest of sounds echoing back and multiplying, feeling as if the walls themselves are watching his every move because there’s nothing better to do — but that’s not the case here. The hotel still feels warm and homey, maybe thanks to all the lit sconces and light pine, or the thick pile rugs that line the hallways and muffle the heel strike of his boots, or because of all the smiling staff that are still on duty.

A lot of them, actually.

And, now that he pays more attention, he notices that they’re all relatively young, in surprisingly good shape, and their smiles are strained and completely removed from their eyes. They’re also moving a little too slow, at too regular of intervals.

It’s as if they’re on patrol.

The first finger of a chill trails up the back of Michael’s neck; something’s not quite as right as it seems.

Another staff member passes him, smiling and nodding and the picture of professional politeness, but this time he’s not too distracted to notice the small earpiece that’s barely visible in her right ear or the well-concealed bulge under her jacket.

And he can feel her eyes on him long after he walks past.

_Fuck fuck fuck_. Michael isn’t technically doing anything wrong, walking around the public spaces of a hotel at which he’s a registered guest, but he’d rather not have been spotted all the same. If things have gone sideways with Alex—

Alex. Shit. He wasn’t expecting any of this; he really thought this was an innocent hotel.

A framed oil painting vibrates on the wall beside him and the wooden beam overhead creaks from a sudden lash of Michael’s powers. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to breathe; the last thing he needs is to lose control right now.

So it’s probably best not to think about the possibility of Alex being taken until he knows something for certain.

But first he has to _find_ him. Michael wishes he’d put a handprint on him or implanted him with a GPS tracker — hell, he’d take Alex wearing a collar with a tiny bell on it at this point. Something, _anything_ to point him in the right direction.

But there’s nothing. No clues or hints, just the idea of where Alex was headed and no option but to follow in his footsteps.

Michael feels something like panic scuttling behind his ribs.

But he swallows it down and forces himself to saunter a little as he approaches the front desk; the attendant standing behind it smiles.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I was hoping to get an extra towel or two.” Michael leans over the desk with a conspiratorial little grin. “We were splashing around a little too much in the jacuzzi earlier and now the floor’s wet.”

“Of course, sir. One moment.”

Michael was hoping the tall, blond, and muscle-bound attendant would have to leave the desk to retrieve them, but he doesn’t. He simply turns, and in five seconds his arms are filled with a pile of fluffy whiteness.

_Damn it._ The universe just absolutely refuses to give Michael a single break.

Except...

The fire in the enormous fireplace chooses that exact moment to let out a loud _pop_ , and it gives him an idea.

Michael glances at it quickly, using his powers to throw an especially large, bright ember out onto the rug.

It immediately catches fire.

“Hey, uh, I think you’ve got a problem out here,” Michael says, pointing, already sliding his body to the side. The attendant’s eyes grow wide as he sees the small blaze and its column of smoke; he reaches for a fire extinguisher on the wall and rushes out from behind the desk.

It’s just enough of a distraction for Michael to be able to duck behind the desk to the unmarked door that should lead to the manager’s office.

Instead, he finds himself in a long, utilitarian-looking hallway, white linoleum shining under a row of fluorescent lights.

They’ve obviously done some off-the-books renovations to the less public areas of the hotel; the feeling of dread that had been slowly creeping through Michael’s chest begins to _run._

He moves quickly, systematically peering through a series of open doorways; the seventh door down is closed and marked with a small sign that simply reads “Office.”

It’s the one that Alex should be behind.

The only problem is the sound of footsteps he hears coming from around the far corner, headed right for it. 

Michael reaches for his powers on instinct and does the first thing he can think of, slamming a door at the opposite end of the hall.

And then he waits, not daring to breathe, as the footsteps stop, hesitate, and then turn away.

He exhales in a fast huff and ducks inside the office, closing the door silently behind him. 

It’s a small room with practically nothing inside: just a computer perched on a flimsy desk and a few filing cabinets stacked in the corner.

There’s no place for Alex to have hidden in here, and he’s nowhere to be seen. It’s empty.

_Shit_.

If Alex isn’t here, and he didn’t come back to their room, then there’s a good chance he’s been captured. Michael briefly entertains a series of ideas: setting the whole hotel on fire, pulling the roof down on their heads until everyone is buried in the rubble, systematically exploding every brain he sees until someone tells him where to find Alex—

—And then a small scuffling sound comes from directly _above_ him.

“Guerin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for making this little experiment in daily posting so much fun so far. <3


	8. Chapter 8

“How _exactly_ did you manage to get stuck in there?”

Michael sounds amused and relieved and maybe a little bit impressed, or maybe Alex is just reading way too much into it as a means of distracting himself.

Because Michael is somehow _here_ , coming to his rescue like an honest-to-god knight in shining armor.

(Or knight in denim and rumpled flannel. Whatever.)

And he’s looking up at Alex with a smile and warm fondness in those big brown eyes; his hair is still sleep-tousled and his hands are resting on his hard hips... and Alex should definitely be focusing on the clear and present danger of their situation and not the way Michael’s jeans hang or the glimpse of chest hair visible down the front of his half-buttoned shirt.

“I heard someone coming and the only place to hide was up,” Alex says, sliding one of the ceiling tiles a little further to the side so Michael can see him better. “So I climbed up on the filing cabinets and got in this space behind the dropped ceiling, but then my leg got tangled up in the wiring and I couldn’t get loose.” He feels his cheeks warm, embarrassment flooding his veins as he gestures at the prosthesis awkwardly angled to his side. “Turns out I’m not quite as limber or maneuverable as I used to be.”

“That’s not how I remember it,” Michael drawls, and Alex blushes even more, this time for an entirely different reason.

He clears his throat. “Lascivious remarks later, escape now, please.”

“Yeah, okay, hang on.”

Watching Michael use his powers always comes as a surprise to Alex. Intellectually he knows that they exist; he has witnessed their effects enough times now that it’s undeniable. But Alex never watches whatever it is that Michael is moving — he finds it far more interesting to watch Michael himself in those moments — and his face gives nothing away.

So it seems (as so many things with Michael do) like sheer _magic_.

It’s as if he simply stares at the wires wrapped around Alex’s leg and then they’re skillfully disentangling themselves, his leg moving gently back into place all on its own.

Alex sighs and rubs it as best he can while still tucked up inside the ceiling.

“Now for the rest of you,” Michael says, voice a little rough. “Ready?”

Alex nods, and then his whole body is shifted through the opening in the ceiling, lowering swiftly but safely until he’s cradled in Michael’s waiting arms.

“Thanks,” Alex breathes, holding onto Michael’s neck, the soft hair at the nape tickling at his fingertips, their hot breath intermingling, faces only inches apart.

Michael’s eyes seem to dance across his face, as if memorizing every curve and angle and eyelash; Alex can’t seem to lift his eyes from Michael’s pink, slightly parted mouth. His arms are like steel bands secured beneath him, so solid even under his substantial weight, and Alex is overwhelmed by the feeling of being _safe_.

He shouldn’t; there’s still half a dozen military personnel patrolling the hallways outside that would actively try to detain and potentially kill him (and Michael, too, if they’re caught together), but he’s not sure it’s _possible_ to feel anything except protected when Michael’s holding him.

Which is why he disentangles himself as quickly as possible.

Back on his own feet, Alex shifts his weight and straightens his shirt; he can’t quite look at Michael as he murmurs, “Thanks for the rescue.”

Michael tilts his head until he catches Alex’s gaze, his answer low and clear and warm. “Any time, Captain.”

Alex draws a deep breath and pulls a flash drive from his pocket to (a) have something productive to focus on and (b) make sure he didn’t drop it during his scramble into the ceiling, then tucks it safely away.

“Did you get anything?” Michael asks, gesturing with a lift of his chin.

“From a very cursory look, it appears that nearly everything on this computer is related to mundane hotel operations, but I can tell there’s more that I just haven’t been able to access. There’s a file that shows a different layout of the hotel, including a secret subbasement that’s not on the official blueprints.”

Alex licks his lips and glances off to the side before continuing. “Given my unfortunately extensive experience with Project Shepherd and underground spaces, I can pretty much guarantee there’s a private server down there — and anything of use to us is probably on it.”

Michael blinks. “…Project Shepherd.”

Alex can’t quite meet his eyes. “I can’t be 100% certain that it’s them yet, but _something_ shady is going on.”

“So they really might still be operating here,” Michael mutters as he rubs his hand across his mouth, eyes haunted and distant. “Alex, we’re practically on the other side of the country from Roswell...how big does this thing go?”

For the first time since they’d come up with this asinine plan, he seems genuinely afraid — which Alex understands better than anyone. He’d been at Caulfield too, after all; he’s been plagued with nightmares of those cells ever since.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs.

Michael looks down at his feet, as if he believes that by staring at the floor hard enough he can see the levels below. “Can we get into the subbasement?”

“The smarter plan would be to try to access the server remotely first.”

“Is that possible?”

“If I can somehow gain direct access to the network, yeah. But that’s not our most pressing issue at the moment.” Alex runs a hand through his artfully messy hair, bits of insulation from his time in the ceiling falling loosely around his shoulders. “I think I must have tripped some kind of silent alarm in the hallway or when I opened one of the doors — patrols have been combing the halls for half an hour now. They’re suspicious.”

Michael’s suddenly laser focused, eyes darting across Alex as if checking for previously unseen injuries. “Did anyone see you? Do they know who you are?”

“No, it’s okay. I disabled the cameras in all service areas of the hotel and wiped the recordings; as long as we can get out of here and back into the sections where we’re _supposed_ to be without anyone seeing our faces, they won’t know who we are.”

But, as if on cue, they hear booted footsteps coming down the hall.

Coming _fast._

“I don’t think we’re _both_ going to fit up in the ceiling,” Michael says uneasily, eyeing the small space and using his powers to slide the ajar tile back into place.

“No,” Alex replies, squaring his shoulders and staring at the door. “Just be ready to run.”

The footsteps draw closer in heavy, even strikes against the linoleum. Alex feels Michael cut his eyes toward him, but he doesn’t question him.

He’s trusting Alex with his life. Easily. Completely.

Alex tries not to let that realization (and the not-unpleasant way it twists in his chest) distract him.

The footsteps stop. The handle starts to turn. Neither of them breathe.

And then just before the door opens fully, before they could be spotted, identified, _incapacitated_ , Alex slams his shoulder into the door full force, bouncing it off the unseen man’s face with a sickening thud.

He falls in a messy heap to the floor.

“Come on,” Alex hisses, stepping over him as quickly as the prosthetic will allow.

They move out into the narrow hallway and hurry toward a back door, the most accessible (and least explosive) of Alex’s four possible escape scenarios. It leads straight outside; they’ll have to work their way around to a different entrance and avoid being spotted, but it should be feasible.

But then, he’d thought this was just an old hotel, too. 

Alex winces every time their shoes squeak on the shiny floor and every time they have to pass an open doorway, the darkness beyond potentially concealing all manner of trouble; but, miraculously, they make their way to the rear entrance and slip out without running into anyone.

Alex moves directly to the dark cover of the tree line, Michael close at his back. The canopy overhead keeps even the weak moonlight at bay.

He doesn’t mind the darkness — welcomes it, in fact — but his combat experience is largely in deserts. Iraq. Afghanistan. The Manes residence.

So he doesn’t like the forest, how alive it is and how it seems to watch him, the way it makes sounds he can’t decipher as its shadows constantly shift in the inky black.

Is it just animals? Tree branches in the wind?

Or something more, something _dangerous_?

Pinpricks of ice climb up his spine; he represses a shudder.

Twice he freezes completely, Michael stumbling to a stop centimeters before crashing into his back. Alex is certain he hears footsteps in pursuit of them — but no one ever appears.

He eventually writes it off to unfamiliarity with the sounds of the woods at night, but he doesn’t actually feel safe again until they’re back inside the hotel.

He’s led them to an unattended and half-forgotten side door, a service entrance to the laundry room. Hulking machines and enormous swaths of hanging white sheets seem to watch them as they creep across the bleach-scented room in the half-light.

Alex feels as though the ghosts of eighty years’ worth of Project Shepherd soldiers watch as he sneaks past, so close to an alien that he can feel the heat radiating from his skin.

He hopes it pisses them off.

But he can’t seem to shake the feeling of those unseen eyes on his back as they wind their way up staircases and down long service hallways, or as they sneak back onto their floor and then stroll hand-in-hand with careful casualness back to their room.

Just a lovesick couple on a midnight stroll.

Nothing to see here.

Nothing at all.


	9. Chapter 9

“What do you mean by _leaving_?”

They’ve made their way back to the room without further incident, the door securely locked behind them — but now Michael has a whole new problem to deal with.

Alex himself.

“I mean exactly what I said,” Alex replies calmly, continuing to repack their suitcases. “We are leaving right now because if we stay any longer, we risk exposure.”

“So what?!” Michael might be yelling or he might be laughing or, hell, probably both. He’s a mess of adrenaline and confusion without much control of either. “We haven’t gotten what we came for, we don’t know how far this goes or what other facilities might exist or—“

“I cannot lose you, Michael!” Alex snaps, eyes blazing, fingers curled into a tight fist. “If they realize who we are, they will take you away and _I will never see you again_. You’ll be experimented on, kept in a cage, all record of your existence will be wiped and—“

Michael has crossed the distance between them before he consciously made the decision to move, cupping Alex’s jaw gently with both hands, fingertips stretching back to stroke small soothing circles through the smooth strands of his hair.

“You’re not going to lose me, Alex,” he says, voice a deep, rough rumble that feels like it’s coming straight from his constricted chest. “Not ever.”

Alex draws a shaky breath. “You don’t know that. You saw what they did to your mother; they could do the same to you. To Max. To _Isobel_.”

“Which is why we have to see this through. Find out what they know, what they’re trying to do.” Michael’s blunt fingernails scratch lightly at the hair on the base of Alex’s skull; it’s so soft, slipping through his fingers like silk. “The only way we’ll ever truly be safe is if no one is hunting us anymore.”

He wants to pull Alex closer, to trace his fingers over his chin and cheekbones and the scar on his forehead, he wants to kiss some sense into him, he wants to lay him back on that king-sized bed and touch him until neither of them can see straight—

And Alex gently extricates himself from Michael’s hands, the same expression on his face as the first time they’d laid eyes on Caulfield.

“I don’t know if that’s something we’re capable of doing,” he says, voice quietly horrified. “Project Shepherd, or whoever’s running this place...this goes so much deeper than we thought.” He licks his lips and drags his eyes to meet Michael’s. “I don’t know if we’re enough to take it down.”

Michael’s shaking his head before Alex has even finished speaking. “We’re enough,” he says, solid, all quiet conviction as he laces his fingers through Alex’s and stands so close he can see the flecks of color hiding in Alex’s deceptively dark eyes. “We’ve always been enough.”

Alex, silent, tips his head forward just enough to lean his forehead against Michael’s. For a long minute, they simply breathe one another in as a completed circuit; Michael’s pounding heart slows, his nerves calming, and his swirling thoughts seem to settle. It’s as if Alex’s mere presence is a constant star guiding his blood and brain and body.

It would be so easy for Michael to tell him. Or to press forward just a couple of inches, to let his lips say what his voice never seems to be able to.

But now’s not the time; they’ve got bigger concerns.

Project Shepherd-sized concerns.

“Thank you for saving me,” Alex whispers. The words are so soft that Michael feels them against his skin more than he actually hears the sound.

“Always,” he promises.

Alex pulls back just enough to look into his eyes. “Do you really think it’s worth the risk to stay here?”

“At this point, I think it’s too risky _not_ to.” Michael rubs a thumb across Alex’s knuckles, rising over the hard bone, dipping into the soft skin between. “Besides, wouldn’t they be suspicious of the couple that suddenly bolts in the middle of the night after someone was sneaking around in the employee-only area?”

Alex sighs, chin dropping to his chest. “Yeah. Yeah, they would.”

“Okay then,” Michael says softly, dropping Alex’s hands in order to take a small stack of clothes out of the suitcase and hand it back to him. “We’ll stay. We’ll be more careful, but we’ll keep trying to find out what these people know.”

Alex holds the clothes close to his chest like a makeshift shield, and draws a breath deep enough to lift his muscled shoulders.

“This has to be our only priority now,” he says, tone sharp and rough as gravel. “I was focused on the wrong things going into tonight; I took my eye off the objective and it all went wrong. This mission has been _messy_ , and I don’t do messy. I put you at unnecessary risk, and I cannot let it happen again.”

He jaw is clenched, his chin held high. “Going forward, we can’t let ourselves be distracted by _anything_ beyond gathering intel and avoiding suspicion.”

Only his eyes say the unspoken parts, the ones about love and yearning and cosmic destiny.

But Michael hears them all the same.

It means that they’re pressing pause on any nebulous possibility that may have been developing between them... while pretending to be a blissfully married couple more than ever.

Great.

Perfect.

Michael rolls his eyes to the sky, angry at himself in an aimless sort of way. After all, by now he really should know better than to expect anything from the universe except getting fucked over in new and creative ways.

But there’s no point in arguing with Alex when he’s wearing that particular facial expression, the one where his teeth are clenched tight enough to crack. And besides — the unavoidable truth is that he’s _right_. One wrong move right now and Michael spends the rest of his life in a cage, and he hasn’t been thinking straight in days.

So they unpack quietly, then undress and climb back into bed. Michael sprawls out face down with a loud sigh, feeling the last of the adrenaline dissipate; Alex turns onto his side, facing him.

“I was worried about you back there,” he admits into the dark silence. His words are so quiet Michael has to strain to hear them.

“You think _you_ were worried? I found you wedged in the ceiling like a rabid raccoon.”

Alex laughs a little, the sound floating in the black night. “Well, thanks again for the save.”

“It’s what we do,” Michael murmurs, slurry and soft, already mostly asleep. “We save each other.”

He’s not sure he ever thought of it that way before, but he supposes it’s true.

More importantly, it _feels_ true.

And as he drifts off, Michael’s healed hand reaches out on instinct, fingertips resting ever so softly on the warmth of Alex’s waist.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love you guys ❤️❤️❤️

“It’s _sticky_ ,” Michael mumbles around a mouth full of food, groaning with pleasure and closing his eyes.

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“With cinnamon buns, it _is_ a good thing.” He opens his eyes again, cutting them at Alex with a teasing grin. “C’mon, Alex, loosen up a little bit. Eat some simple carbs and refined sugar like the wild man you are.”

“Not all of us can maintain a six-pack on a garbage diet, Guerin.”

A curl blows into Michael’s eyes and he doesn’t bother to brush it away, watching Alex through the fluttering filter of honeyed brown strands. “You been noticing my abs, Airman?”

“You’ve been parading around our room in nothing but your boxers ever since we got here. I had no choice but to notice.”

The morning air is crisp and clean as they eat an early breakfast on their balcony, the sun breaking over the the mountains and painting the sky in pale lavender and yellow and pink; Michael watches a matching pink creep into Alex’s cheeks despite his set jaw and deliberately distant gaze.

“Good,” Michael says, _can’t_ _help_ but say, and lets the moment hang in the quiet air for a few seconds.

But Alex doesn’t so much as blink.

Michael’s not surprised — Alex practically holds a PhD in repressing shit and focusing on the task ahead: Alex Manes, Doctor Of Being A Literal Tight-Ass.

Besides, Michael had agreed just a few hours ago to do the same...even if he had woken up with a still-sleeping Alex’s heavy arm tossed across his chest and their legs so tangled up together it had taken an excruciatingly long 2.8 seconds to separate, during which he’s pretty certain his hip accidentally grazed Alex’s half-hard dick and he’d let out a small sound like a wounded animal.

But since then? Utter stoicism.

So Michael eventually clears his throat and changes the subject.

“Okay, well, given the failure of last night, what do you suggest we do today?”

“We can’t continue our investigation until tonight — it’s far less complicated if we don’t have to worry about guests wandering the halls.” Alex stabs at his eggs and the fork tine punctures the yolk; it quickly bleeds bright yellow across the plate. “So, during the day, we have to be completely above suspicion. They know they had a security breach last night, and we can’t have them thinking it was us. We keep playing along with the scheduled activities, and we have to be totally believable.

He mops at the egg with a corner of his whole-wheat toast, seemingly fascinated by the way the bread absorbs the liquid. “Now that we know something is going on here, I’m apprehensive about the coordinator or even a few of the other couples. They might be plants who are using the retreat as a way of luring in anyone suspicious of this facility, or Project Shepherd itself — people exactly like us.”

Alex has clearly been plotting, that sharp mind always a dozen steps ahead of any potential battle. And Michael is both impressed and a little melancholy; Alex’s life shouldn’t have to be a war.

But he doesn’t look like he’s fighting anything now, in his soft, form-fitting t-shirt and sweatpants, hair still sticking up from sleep, posture loose and relaxed. He sips his coffee and finally looks at Michael, the rising sun behind him glowing like a halo around his head; Michael wants to burn this sight into his retinas, to see its afterimage every time he closes his eyes.

But he’s supposed to be focused on the mission. No distractions, not even ones of the Alex Manes variety.

God, he really sucks at this.

A bird sings a chipper trill to the coming day; the wind gently bends the tops of the pine trees in the forest surrounding them. This place is so beautiful, so tranquil — it’s almost impossible in the light of day to believe anything evil is happening here.

Maybe they were just overreacting? Maybe there’s a reason for heightened security and secret subbasements other than government alien experimentation?

But the only way to find out is to keep digging. And the only way to do _that_ is to play along with the remainder of the couple’s retreat.

“Okay then,” Michael says, exhaling loudly and pushing his wild bedhead out of his face. “What’s up first on today’s agenda?”

Alex frowns, handing him the schedule with a look that suggests it will be torture.

And, in a way, it is.


	11. Chapter 11

“I don’t know how you get yourself into these situations.”

“ _Me_?!?” Alex hisses. “This — all of this —was _your_ plan, right down to the rose petals on the bed of our honeymoon suite. I’m just doing my best to keep us from getting caught and tortured and _dissected_.“

Michael looks over at him, stretched out on the massage table a few feet away from his own. If he wanted — if _Alex_ wanted — he could reach out and take his hand.

“So you don’t want to be experimented on? ‘Cause I gotta say, Manes, the whole naked-except-for-one-thin-sheet thing is giving me some ideas…”

And maybe he’s just hallucinating from too much wishful thinking, but he’d swear Alex’s cheeks are a little pinker, his eyes drifting down Michael’s body to where the sheet rests over the swell of his ass.

He’s pretty sure he’d had a small stroke when he’d read the words _couple’s massage_ on the activity schedule.

The whole being-naked-in-the-same-room aspect of it, yes, but also—

“Alex, I’m not exactly in the income bracket that has massages regularly or, like, ever,” he’d said, voice quiet, face serious. “How trained are they? Is there a chance they could, I don’t know, _rub_ me in some way and realize that I’m not exactly human?”

And Alex, to his credit, had tried not to smile. Michael could see the struggle play out across his face — and see the instant he lost.

“While massage therapists are trained professionals, I am _very_ well acquainted with your external physiology and I can assure you — they won’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

Michael had let out a sigh, a coil of tension in his chest easing. And then he couldn’t help the way one eyebrow raised or the deliberate _lean_ into Alex’s personal space.

“Really? You’d call my anatomy _ordinary_?”

Alex’s eyes had raked over him in a manner that definitely violated the terms of their new no-distractions peace treaty, head-to-toe blazing _heat_. Then he’d flicked his gaze back up to Michael’s, expression deadpan except for an almost unnoticeable twitch at the corner of his lips.

“It’s adequate.”

And it had taken every last drop of Michael’s restraint to keep from throwing him onto the bed right then and there and proving just how _adequate_ he could be.

So he hadn’t had any fucking clue how he was going to keep to their whole focus-solely-on-the-mission agreement as they stripped down beside each other for their massages...but he’s actually finding that he’s mostly just relaxed. He’s always been comfortable naked, the candlelight and soothing music are good for his blood pressure (which he’s fairly certain has been through the damn _roof_ since their airplane lifted off from New Mexico), and the tiny tendrils of incense smoke curling through the air make him want to take slow, deep, deliberate breaths.

It also helps that champagne had been waiting for them when they arrived; they’d chugged it like frat boys with tequila shots.

Michael can feel the bubbles buzzing in his blood now, mellowing him out when the massage therapists come in and start their work.

He turns his face into the hole in the massage table, letting his eyes drift shut as he feels hands on him, warm and strong as they work along the muscles of his arm.

If he tries hard enough, he can pretend that it’s Alex’s hands that are touching him with such deliberate care, that _he’s_ the one wringing the tension from his body.

Michael should probably be ashamed of that, but he’s not. He’s been pretending other hands are Alex’s for a decade now, in bar bathrooms and on thin mattresses in cheap apartments, or when his own hand wraps around himself in the shower. He’d even imagined Alex when with Maria a time or two (and that part he does feel a little shame for).

But this isn’t the place to dwell on things like that. Right now everything is fuzzy and dreamlike, his consciousness drifting across the blurry space between sleep and wakefulness, with Alex right there beside him, skin flushed and glistening.

The masseuse starts working on Michael’s neck and he’s thinking about the summer when he was twenty. It was so hot and he was sick of the hair in his face, always plastered to his forehead with sweat. So he’d buzzed it short — and then Alex had come home. They’d spent three days in bed and Alex hadn’t been able to stop touching it, running his palm over the shorn strands, tracing Michael’s hairline with his fingertips, stroking down the soft skin on the back of his neck and making him shiver.

The hands move to his back and he’s thinking about that summer after high school, Alex kissing his way down his spine on a cool summer night in the bed of his truck, mouth hot and wet and reverent as he worked his way south. He’d taken his time and didn’t seem to have an end goal in sight — just touching Michael because he could, because it was good and gentle and nice. Michael had never felt anything like that, didn’t know he _could_ ; that someone could be soft and caring and touch him simply because they both wanted to, because it was pleasant, because he was _loved_.

Hands on his legs now and he’s remembering the last time he and Alex had been together. How Alex’s hard hips had felt between Michael’s thighs as he pushed inside of him, strong fingers gripping the back of Michael’s knees, holding his legs in place. The way they hadn’t seemed to be able to look away from one another in the pale light inside Michael’s trailer, Alex sweating and shaking above him with barely controlled desire, Michael gasping as he looked up, reaching for Alex’s hips to urge him on, to tell him he was ready, he wanted _more_ , he wanted all of him _right now_ —

And even though it’s just a memory, Michael is dizzy with want and boneless with bliss, the masseuse’s hands half-forgotten as they move on to his calves.

Michael doesn’t care; all he can think about is Alex. Alex is _here_ , right _now_ , and he’s as naked as Michael is and feeling this same pleasure and if Michael tries, he’s probably close enough that he could touch...

He stretches one hand halfway across the distance between their tables, and he doesn’t know how Alex was watching him while facedown on the table but he was, of course he was.

He notices everything.

So Alex reaches for him, too, his fingertips trailing along Michael’s palm and lighting up his over-sensitized skin like the tail of a comet, billions of burning embers.

Michael sinks his teeth into his lower lip, biting back a groan.

And when Alex eventually tangles their fingers together, Michael _squeezes_ and feels the last of the tension drain away from his body.

Their joined hands hover, forming a bridge across the empty space between them, and it doesn’t feel like an act at all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for a brief, vague bit of homophobia toward the end of this chapter.

“Why is it suddenly purple?”

Michael is staring down into the saucepan, watching a dark burgundy concoction bubble away like witch’s brew.

“Because you added red wine,” Alex answers drily. “A _lot_ of red wine.”

“Yeah, so? Wine belongs in pasta sauce.”

“It was going to be a _cream_ sauce, Guerin.”

They’re both wearing the required uniform for couple’s cooking class — white aprons and tall, paper chef’s hats, a mandate from Coordinator Barbara that Michael donned with delight, Alex with something closer to defeated resignation.

“Whatever, adding wine is always a good idea. Making food that will fill you up _and_ get you buzzed? Yes. Absolutely. Best thing ever.” Michael picks the bottle back up and moves toward the pan. “Actually, we should probably add _more—_ “

Alex swoops in and confiscates the wine, holding it on the far side of him and whacking Michael’s hand with his wooden spoon when he tries to grab for it.

So Michael just rolls his eyes and laughs, big and loose and carefree, before turning back to his cutting board and swaying his hips a little, dancing along to the music playing from the speakers overhead as he massacres some basil.

He’s a terrible dancer and an even worse cook, but he’s hoping the mathematical principle of two negatives making a positive applies here. (However, given the pitying looks the couple beside them keeps tossing in Alex’s direction, Michael’s pretty sure his calculations are off.)

He’s supposed to be on his best behavior. And he has been, mostly — they finished their massage and took turns with long soaks in their suite’s spacious tub, Michael carefully cleaning his skin of massage oil and the memory of Alex’s hand in his, trying to think about how worried he’d been last night, how close they came to getting caught, how important it is to pay attention to the very real danger that might be lurking here and not the tangled mess of feelings playing jump rope with his intestines.

But by the time he climbs out of the tub, skin scrubbed and flushed and fingertips pruney, he’s found a bit of clarity. Michael has made a decision...he just hasn’t quite figured out what to do about it.

And maybe Alex is wrestling with something too; he’s been quieter than usual this afternoon.

It contrasts sharply with the way the hotel’s industrial kitchen echoes with the sounds of talking and laughing and chopping and music, couples cooking class having devolved into something closer to a free for all. Coordinator Barbara doesn’t much seem to care; she wanders between the couples making small talk and offering zero advice on how to proceed.

But Alex chops and stirs and sautés like he knows what he’s doing; he _always_ seems to know. He might be the most efficient, capable person Michael has ever met. He wonders briefly if he should tell him so, but—

“What’s with you, anyway?” Alex speaks quietly, trusting that the other couples are preoccupied with their own cook stations, with the sizzle of hot oil in pans and rhythmic chop of a knife’s edge on wood. “It’s as if you’re actually _happy._ ”

“What d’ya mean?” Michael mumbles around the large pinch of shredded parmesan he just shoved in his mouth.

“I mean this, all of this—“ Alex gestures a little with the spoon, tiny flecks of deep purple sauce splattering the counter and his apron and Michael’s knife, making the kitchen look like a murder scene in a low-budget sci-fi movie. “All the very dumb, very cheesy, very not-Michael-Guerin type stuff that you seem to be immensely enjoying?”

It’s a tiny bit of truth, a crumb of reality from Alex, _his_ Alex, not the Ideal Husband™ version he’s been flawlessly pretending to be. And with it all the strings that were keeping Michael up seem to have suddenly been cut — he can’t be a puppet with the truth screaming in his blood.

_Because I’m getting to do it with you._

_Because it makes it all feel a little more real._

_Because I’m in love with you. Always have been. Pretty sure I always will be._

Michael’s palms itch with want for Alex’s skin, his mouth twisting as he holds back the words. He doesn’t know how he’s made it through the day so far, how he keeps breathing when he’s suffocating around everything bottled up in his chest.

But he also feels lighter and freer than he has since they arrived. Because, at some point between being stretched out on that massage table and soaking in the tub, his consciousness finally made a quiet peace with what he wants — and it’s painfully simple.

He’s done faking it.

He’s not going to put them in danger and he’s not going to blow the mission, but the simple fact is that he’s supposed to be in love with Alex for his cover, and he is _actually_ in love with Alex. So from here on out, he’s just going to follow his instincts. He’s going to be honest.

But he can’t go making a life-changing romantic declaration in the middle of a crowded cooking class held inside a secret alien-hunting government installation, so instead he just shrugs and swallows.

“When in Rome, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, eyes still narrowed at Michael, tone suspicious. “Right.”

Michael can’t stand still anymore, and he can’t say anything true, and if he doesn’t do _something_ he’s going to explode. So he grabs the spoon and fishes a spaghetti noodle out of the boiling water, blowing on it for a second before popping one end in his mouth.

“You could at least wait until we finish this monstrosity of a dish to start eating it,” Alex says, but he’s smiling and standing a little closer than necessary, his apron brushing against Michael’s.

(Michael has a vivid vision of Alex using those apron strings to tie his wrists to their headboard.)

“Gotta make sure the pasta’s done,” Michael answers, words muffled by the noodle he’s slowly eating his way down. “You want a bite?”

Alex glances quickly to the side; Michael can see the instant he notices Coordinator Barbara watching them a little more closely than he’d like.

It’s right before Alex bites the other end of the long noodle and starts chewing his way toward Michael’s mouth.

They’re both grinning and Alex is bracing himself with his palms under Michael’s elbows until Michael’s hands wrap around Alex’s hips, steadying them both. Alex’s chef’s hat slips sideways and it’s sloping across his forehead and covering one eye; he starts laughing as he loops a bit more pasta into his mouth with his tongue.

He’s so perfect that Michael thinks his heart is going to explode.

“Oooh, just like _Lady and the Tramp_!” One of the other attendees notices their antics, squealing.

“Except without the lady,” her husband mumbles.

Michael doesn’t take his eyes of Alex, just flips the guy off and keeps chewing until their lips are pressed together, warm and smiling and dear _god_ he wants this. Love and joy and domestic bliss; Alex in a dorky outfit, teasing him and grinning.

He wants it in a kitchen of their own, he wants it every day, he wants it even if the food tastes terrible and the routine is monotonous. He wants Alex. All of him. All the time.

_Shit._

Screw the mission. He’s gonna have to tell him.


	13. Chapter 13

“You need to stop.”

Alex pulls his hand off the dining table and away from Michael’s gently stroking fingers. He’d been playing with Alex’s wedding ring, spinning it slowly, and it felt like lightning singeing his bones.

Alex cradles his hand in his lap, taking a calming breath while desperately trying to look anywhere _except_ at Michael.

Everything is perfect, _too_ perfect, from the thick cream-colored tablecloth to the candlelight sparkling on the silverware and crystal. A single red rose rests in a slender vase at the center; behind it, Michael is groomed perfection in a midnight blue button down and artfully messy hair.

Alex was trained by the Air Force to withstand torture, but he’s fairly certain that repeating his name, rank, and serial number isn’t going to do jack shit to help with this situation.

Michael leans a little closer, murmuring so as not to be overheard by the other diners. “You’re the one who said we needed to maintain our cover. We’re supposed to be married. Married people are _in love_.”

Alex won’t let himself feel the sharp way those words slice through him, the small voice inside him that’s pleading with him to go along with this, to take whatever scraps of affection Michael wants to toss his way, to believe his own lies.

“Sometimes,” he says, carefully flat. “And sometimes they’re just stuck together and don’t see any better options.”

Michael looks like he’s been slapped. “Yeah, but that’s not us. That could _never_ be us.”

His eyes burn, the candle’s flame reflecting in the dark depths. He reaches for Alex’s hand again but his jaw tightens and shoulders tense, like he’s bracing for some kind of impact. “Come on, Alex. You can’t tell me that you haven’t been feeling something through all of this, something _real_ —“

And there it is. Alex has been waiting for the metaphorical shoe to drop since that stupid massage — god, _why_ did he reach for Michael’s hand? It had been good for their cover but hell for his head...it had just felt so _real_. Like their joined hands were punching a hole in the dam that’s been holding back all the things they aren’t saying, all the love and pain and history that’s been hastily plastered over with this fake marriage.

It felt like maybe they were going to do something recklessly dangerous like actually tell the _truth_.

And it had left him reeling through the cooking class and drinks and most of their dinner, as he tried to shake it off and be ready to preempt Michael whenever he got around to saying what’s been on his mind.

(The man has no poker face; Alex has no idea how he managed to keep a secret as big as his alien origins for so long.)

And normally he’d let Michael speak his piece, say whatever it is that he needed to get off his chest. Because Alex loves to listen to Michael, to his ramblings about his latest experiment or rants over some stupid thing Max said or even just the way he hums and mutters to himself as he works on a car. Alex loves everything Michael says — but this particular topic has to be off-limits. Alex’s heart can’t take another crack without shattering entirely.

_If I left Roswell and I asked you to come with me, would you?_

He’d taken the risk for the first time since he was a seventeen-year old kid in his father’s old shed trying to kiss a boy he liked; he’d been vulnerable, he’d gone after something he truly wanted despite every fiber of his body screaming not to, to keep the walls up, to keep himself safe. But he’d still stood there and asked if Michael would have run away with him.

_No. I'm saying no._

Michael may as well have flayed the skin from his bones; it would have hurt less.

And Alex has been struggling to clean up the smoldering, toxic wreckage of his heart ever since. He’d thought he was doing okay, that he was successfully burying it with all the other emotional trauma he keeps compressed into a small, dark corner of his mind, but this mission...it just makes it exponentially worse.

Right. The mission. Alex can’t let his focus slip.

He clears his throat and schools his features into an opaque mask, certain that not even his eyes will betray his truth.

“I’ve been _feeling_ that we need to focus on the mission and get out before we’re discovered. We’ve talked about this, Michael. It’s dangerous to be here — especially for you.”

“I know, but we made it through the whole day and nothing threatening has happened, not really. And we’ve got a plan to recover the data tonight, and then there’s only one more day of the retreat before we’re out of here. I want to talk to you, Alex, _really_ talk. But until then, can’t we just...I don’t know, enjoy this?”

Alex shouldn’t engage. He needs to have a single-minded focus now and letting Michael complicate the situation because he’s bored or lonely or needs a distraction...it’s not conducive to accomplishing the task at hand. If he meant it, if he hadn’t shut Alex down back in Roswell and been crystal clear about his true feelings, well, that would be different.

But this? This is just Michael confusing fantasy with reality. And the anger suddenly surging inside Alex can’t take it for a second longer.

“ _Enjoy_. That’s what this is to you, a good time, a little vacation.”

Michael blinks, shaking his head as if bewildered — but someone as brilliant as Michael shouldn’t be confused about something so simple.

“…That’s not what I meant.”

Alex licks his lips and casts his gaze around the crowded dining room, the soft murmur of polite chatter and light instrumental music playing in the background, the waiter that seems to be standing a little too close. Michael might have lost his focus here, but Alex has already made that mistake once.

He won’t make it again.

So he changes his mask again, this time into one of loving amusement, allowing only Michael to see that it doesn’t touch his eyes.

“You’re right, sweetie.” The word tastes sour like spoiled milk as it crosses his tongue. “Let’s just _enjoy_ our evening.”

Michael bites his lip and looks away, leaning back in his chair. He’s every bit as handsome as he was just minutes ago, but Alex doesn’t feel the yearning to touch him anymore.

Instead it just twists at his gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Reminder that there’s seventeen parts left. Don’t hate me.)


	14. Chapter 14

“Ugh, why did I _eat_ that?”

Alex isn’t sure whether he should hold his stomach or his head, given that both ache in near-equal measure. He’s full and a little hungover, feeling swollen with too much everything — food, wine, love, rejection. He’s pretty sure if someone poked him right now he’d pop like an overinflated balloon and fly right off the mountain and into the stratosphere.

“I know, I overate too,” Michael says, rubbing a little at his still-perfectly-flat stomach. “Maybe we should walk around some? Help us digest?”

And Alex doesn’t have any reason to say no; the anger he doesn’t quite understand has burned away, leaving him back to his new normal state of hurt and aching _want_. Half of him is desperate to run as far from Michael as possible, while the other half fights not to fall to his knees and beg him to love him back, to never let him go.

A walk seems like a reasonable compromise between the two.

So they take a slow moonlight stroll down the same hiking path they’d walked when they’d first arrived...was that really just yesterday? Alex feels like he’s aged half a century since he left Roswell.

Above them the stars are a scattering of silver sparkling down at them, the mountain air cold enough that their breath fogs and intermingles as it floats on the wind. They’re holding hands because they’re never quite sure who’s watching, but it feels awkward now, their arms straining to reach one another around the piles of unspoken things that have built up between them.

But the silence and darkness help. Alex can pretend that it’s the Michael he remembers from high school beside him, or that they’ve actually managed to talk at some point in the last decade without wounding each other, or that he’d never bared his heart to Michael only to have it ripped from his chest.

They stop at the same spot where they’d eaten their picnic, the lake below shimmering in the moonlight; Michael’s handsome face beside him is painted in grayscale like he’s a film star from an old black-and-white movie.

Alex has to look away; it hurts too much.

Instead he stares straight up, trying to pick out Cassiopeia. The sky shouldn’t look different to him here, but it does. It’s as if the stars have been fired scattershot across the darkness, everything disorienting.

But it’s easier to talk like this, wrapped in nighttime and staring up at a seemingly unfamiliar sky.

“It’s so strange,” he says, voice soft in the still dark, hand wrapped in Michael’s warm fingers, “to think that when you look up at the stars, you don’t see cold and distance. You see _home_.”

He hears Michael draw a deep breath, is almost close enough to feel his chest expand.

“Actually, I don’t. Not anymore.”

Alex, surprised, is tempted to look over, to tear his eyes away from the safety of the sky.

But he doesn’t.

“I mean,” Michael continues, “yeah, up there somewhere...that’s where I came from. But I’m starting to figure out that it doesn’t matter so much where I started out. Home is where I _want_ to be.” He squeezes Alex’s fingers, forcing him to meet Michael’s eyes. “And I want to be right here.”

It would be so easy to believe it, that genuine look in Michael’s eyes, the softness of his touch, the tender words—

But no.

_I don’t think we’re good for each other, Alex._

Those were the words he’d said when it mattered, long before the idea of this stupid mission, before they’d escaped on some twisted vacation that makes Alex forget reality. Forget the way Michael really feels, the way he _told_ him he feels.

Alex knows he handles rejection especially poorly; intellectually he’s aware that it’s a result of the abuse and emotional negligence he suffered as a child.

But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to stop feeling it.

He forces himself to let go of Michael’s hand.

“I can’t do this, Guerin. Not now.”

And he expects a fight, frustration and questions and arguments — but there must be something in his face, something in the quiet brokenness of his voice, that stills Michael’s tongue. He just rests his palm flat on Alex’s back, thumb rubbing softly back and forth in a smooth arc.

“Okay.” His voice is soft but solid, assured. “Guess I’ll just have to keep trying until you can.”

Alex can feel himself staring, eyes still glued to Michael’s as they shine in the starlight, mouth falling open like a fish — but he can’t help it.

Michael shrugs, smiling a little. “You’ve always been a stubborn shit. Don’t know why I’d expect this to be any different.” He rubs at the back of his neck a little self-consciously, the only sign that maybe he’s not quite as confident and fearless as he seems. “But I’m stubborn too, Alex, and you’ll be ready to listen to me eventually.”

Eventually. As in, a nebulous future time of Alex’s choosing, and Michael is just going to _wait_ for him to be ready?

A weight Alex hadn’t realized he was carrying lifts; it feels like feathers trailing up the inside of his sternum. Michael has seemed so different today, so _real_ , and maybe, _maybe_ …

There’s the tiniest rustling sound in the woods behind them. It’s probably a raccoon or opossum, maybe even just the wind, but it stops Alex from following that train of thought.

Keeping Michael safe, and getting them out of this place undetected. That’s all that matters right now. It’s all that he can _allow_ to matter.

But he can’t try to access the subbasement server until the middle of the night — they already know the overnight patrol schedule and they need the hallways empty of other guests — and he can’t imagine how they’re going to get through the rest of the evening.

He’s not brave enough to face their suite and the unspoken implications of that damn bed again, not yet.

Apparently, Michael isn’t either.

“I have an idea of something we could do.”

“Oh?” Alex asks, failing to hide how relieved he is. “What is it?”

Michael turns back toward the hotel, looming large on the dark mountaintop above them. He glances back at Alex out the corner of his eye, a sly grin teasing at his mouth. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Alex answers immediately, no hesitation necessary.

He should maybe spend some time examining why he trusts Michael with his head but not his heart; the realization leaves him dazed and off-balance and maybe the tiniest bit _hopeful_.

That maybe things can change. That maybe the walls and barricades he’s built between his thoughts and feelings can be torn down — or at least Alex can carve a small door in them once again.

And maybe he can give Michael the key.

Eventually.

“Then c’mon,” Michael says, reaching a hand out to Alex, palm up; Alex indulges himself in trailing his fingers lightly across the creases and callouses before lacing their hands together. More importantly, he lets himself notice the way it makes Michael _shiver_. “We’re gonna need a wardrobe change.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway there! Thanks to everybody who's come along for the ride. 💖

“Nope, I absolutely refuse to touch that.”

“It’s a hot tub, Alex. And this is a couple’s retreat. I think we’re contractually obligated to fool around in it at least once.”

Alex cuts his eyes at him.

“ _Pretend_ to fool around,” Michael corrects, face flinching the tiniest bit, like he’s been struck but is trying to cover it up.

Alex doesn’t want to think too hard about that.

“Besides,” Michael continues, “you changed into swim trunks and switched your prosthesis out for crutches without protesting — what did you think I was planning?”

“To swim around the lake searching for a secret underwater base full of alien-hunting military operatives.”

Michael stares at him for a long moment, clearly trying to decide if this is an actual suggestion or just Alex’s dry sense of humor fucking with him. Again.

“...You’re not serious.”

Alex simply shrugs, giving nothing away, but he can feel the suppressed laughter bubbling in his chest.

“Alright,” Michael says, tugging his shirt off over his head, “well you can go jump in the lake or just stand there or whatever you want, but I’m freezing my nuts off so I’m going in.”

He’s not wrong about that. It may be springtime but the night air on the mountain is still cold, the breeze gentle but brisk enough to raise goosebumps on his bare leg.

The hot tub is surrounded by a brick half-wall and some shrubbery that forms a semi-private alcove tucked beside the large pool; it’s dark except for the pale light shimmering under the water and the warm glow of the hotel’s windows in the distance. Alex glances around for the fifth time; there’s no one nearby and the hot water (and Michael’s skin) seems so inviting…

He peels off his shirt and climbs into the large hot tub, a cloud of steam enveloping him. Michael slides over until Alex is seated next to him, not quite touching, respecting Alex’s boundaries.

Alex suddenly, _desperately,_ wishes he _wasn’t_.

There’s no one around, no reason why they need to pretend to be together. But he’s been fighting his bruised heart all day and he’s so tired, and Michael seemed so genuine tonight and he looks so _good—_

—And before Alex can stop his traitorous hand it’s reaching out and drawing Michael toward him.

Michael seems to float on the steam, coming to him easy and slow, dreamlike. His fingertips trace Alex’s cheek so lightly, like the breeze, like flower petals, and Alex wants more than that, so much more.

He turns his face into Michael’s hand, kissing the palm before drawing the tip of his thumb into his mouth, his tongue swirling around it.

And then everything’s suddenly moving hot and fast like the water jets pounding at their skin. Michael’s climbing into his lap, thighs on either side of his hips, his ass pressing down against Alex’s already hardening cock.

Michael’s arms are wrapped around his neck, fingers weaving into his hair, kissing him deep and thorough and almost _reverent_. Alex’s fingers press into the hard line of Michael’s waist as he tries to hold on, everything around them gone except for the slick touch of wet skin, steam swirling above and water rioting below.

Michael’s pinning him against the side of the hot tub, hips rocking rhythmically, and Alex is clawing at him, trying to pull him impossibly closer. He can taste the wine they’d shared on Michael’s tongue, feel the scrape of stubble against his chin, the brush of chest hair against his nipples. It’s all so familiar and yet foreign, in this strange place and situation, and he wasn’t going to do this, _shouldn’t_ be doing this, but god help him because he can’t remember why.

His head is above water but he’s drowning all the same.

Alex flips them and braces his arms against the side of the hot tub, Michael’s legs immediately hooking around his waist. They’re so close together but Alex wants more, he wants Michael surrounding him, inside of him, something, anything, _everything_.

Michael seems to feel the same, his hands tangled in Alex’s hair and tugging as if trying to get him somehow impossibly closer. The water sloshes and slaps at their skin; all Alex can hear is the blast of the jets, their gasping breath, and his own pounding heart.

Michael draws Alex’s lower lip between his teeth, lightly dragging; one of them _moans_ , and Alex hasn’t felt this good in _months_ and he’s dizzy and panting and—

Breathless, a half second from wrapping his hand around Michael’s cock and getting him off right then and there, Alex wrenches himself away.

“What?” Michael looks dazed, drunk, cheeks flushed from the heat and hair frizzing with the humidity, a cherub fallen from grace.

“No one’s watching us right now,” Alex gasps, lungs greedy for air as he wipes a shaking hand across his mouth. “This isn’t necessary.”

Michael reaches for him on instinct but stops before actually making contact, his hand floating like a wraith in the steam drifting around them.

“Alex, it’s not about—“

But Alex can’t hear it, can’t have this conversation. He’s lost enough control tonight already.

“It’s late,” he says, climbing onto the side of the hot tub and reaching for his crutch, water running in rivulets down his bare chest. “We need to go get ready for tonight’s mission.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today is one of the short chapters, sorry! hope you enjoy this bit of fun.

“Pass me the sledgehammer,” Michael says.

It’s 3 am again and they’re deep in the off-limits section of the hotel, down hallways and staircases and behind a door locked with a combination pad. Alex had guided them through it like he’d done it a hundred times before, like he lived there, and Michael had been blown away yet again at the sheer _competence_ of the man.

Now he’s just examining the wall while Alex frowns emphatically.

Michael isn’t sure whether he wants to use the sledgehammer on the wall or his own _head_ , wondering briefly if he could lobotomize the part of his brain that remembers the hot tub, that can’t _stop_ remembering the hot tub, that wants nothing more than to be _back_ in the hot tub with Alex’s tongue in his mouth and hard cock between his thighs—

—But then he realizes it’s not just his brain that’s the problem; to stop these thoughts and urges he’d have to take the sledgehammer to his balls, too.

And that’s going entirely too far.

Still, the Hot Tub Incident™ (as he has decided to classify it), is evidence that he was right to decide to pursue this again. To scrape up the pieces of his bruised and battered heart and duct tape them back together, writing Alex’s name in bold, black, permanent ink across the mended cracks.

To believe, again.

“No,” Alex says, voice like granite. “Absolutely not. We are not tearing holes in the wall that will alert whoever is operating in this place that we’re here poking around. There has to be a smarter, stealthier way—“

Michael sighs. “You said you needed direct access to the network in order to hack into the protected files.”

“I do.”

“And according to the blueprints you saw on the files you stole last night, the wire you need is in this wall, right?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Well, yes, but—

SLAM.

Alex is cut off by a sledgehammer lifting out of the toolbox Michael had liberated from the janitor’s closet, whirling through the air, and embedding itself in the wall. Powdered drywall explodes, coating them both in white.

“Oops,” Michael says with a shrug and a grin and absolutely zero remorse.


	17. Chapter 17

“Well, that’s the single most impressive thing I’ve ever seen someone do.”

Michael’s voice is low, his mouth mere inches from Alex’s ear. Their two bodies are parallel curves like quotation marks hovering in the air; Michael leaned over Alex, who’s seated on the floor and leaning over his laptop.

Alex can feel Michael’s inhuman warmth on his back, smell the summer storm in the air, and it’s making it more than a little difficult to focus on the job at hand. He clears his throat and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping it’ll help clear his mind.

“You can literally move things with your mind, Guerin,” he mutters. “And your brother has repeatedly _resurrected the dead_. All I did was splice some wire and install a device that will allow us to monitor all digital activity — hardly the most impressive thing.”

As if to illustrate Alex’s statement, Michael moves to repair the hole in the wall with his powers, control so precise that he can replace crumbled chunks of drywall. He lacquers over it with a fresh coat of white paint he’d stolen from the janitor’s closet along with the toolbox; as soon as the smell dissipates, no one will ever be able to tell that the hole was there.

“Still,” he says, not letting it go, “Whatever you did, it was hot.”

Alex’s hands freeze on the keyboard, the feed from the hotel’s security cameras still playing across his screen. His eyes squeeze shut as he takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly.

“The marriage is fake, Guerin. We won’t be consummating it.”

And then Michael is suddenly crouching back down beside him and wrapping one hand around Alex’s wrist, warm and strong and maybe _trembling_ a tiny bit. His eyes are burning and a little wild, fingers leaving thin lines of wet white paint where they press into Alex’s flesh.

“Why not?”

It shouldn’t be a serious question; Alex can tell it absolutely _is_ one.

He deliberately removes his arm from Michael’s grasp, setting his laptop aside and shifting his weight away. He’s getting ready to stand — maybe ready to _run_.

“Because there’s no one here watching us. There’s no need to pretend right now.”

“I am _not pretending._ ” Michael looks like a bomb has gone off in his chest; Alex is terrified suddenly, and he’s not entirely sure why. “I am in _love_ with you, Alex.”

Alex is fractured, cracked in half, somehow both shocked and utterly unsurprised; the barrier between his head and heart has gotten in the way again. He _feels_ that this is true; he can’t possibly _believe_ it.

But Michael did say he was going to keep trying until Alex was ready to hear him.

And this isn’t the place for this conversation; it’s probably the _worst possible_ place for it. But there’s only so long things can be repressed, only so much Alex can swallow before he starts to choke.

The words are out before he can stop them.

“You said _no_. And then you and Maria—“

“Were a _mistake_ ,” Michael interrupts, talking hard and fast, eyes burning. “And it’s over; it’s _been_ over. To be completely honest, I don’t know that it ever even really started. It was _nothing_.”

Alex’s voice is like a viper’s venom. “And yet It was enough that you chose it over me.”

Michael drops his head, hair flopping forward to hide his expression.

“I had just watched my mother blow up, my brother-in-law turned out to be evil, and then my brother died.” He looks up, pleading, broken open and bleeding before him. “I wasn’t in the right headspace to choose a breakfast cereal much less a life partner. And even then I knew, deep down I _knew_ , that it was wrong.”

Their faces are so close Michael could rest his forehead against Alex’s, but he doesn’t. Alex knows that last inch is his territory to cross.

“Because there’s no choice to make, Alex, not really. It’s you. It will _always_ be you.”

Alex can feel everything inside him shaking, an earthquake that threatens the very foundations of who he is. It’s like a dream he wouldn’t admit to having, even to himself, and it’s happening in an electrical room that smells like paint fumes and ozone and Michael’s curls are flopping in his face and his shirt is still dusty with drywall and his face—

—his face is so fucking _sincere_.

It plants a tiny kernel of doubt in the barren soil of Alex’s chest, makes him wonder if maybe he’s been reading this wrong all along.

Maybe Michael feels something close to what he feels.

Maybe this isn’t just a whim, a game for him to play while they fake their way through the retreat.

Maybe there’s nothing fake at all.

“Michael—“

Motion on one of the cameras streaming to his laptop catches the corner of Alex’s eye.

“Someone’s coming.”

Michael looks like he’s been drugged, tossed out of a plane, and then had a prizefighter repeatedly punch him in the face. He seems dazed and dizzy with adrenaline — and Alex suspects it’s got nothing to do with the impending threat.

“What?” Michael finally asks, hoarse, tearing his eyes from Alex’s face to the monitor.

Someone dressed in solid black is coming down the stairs to their level.

They have time to get out and get hidden, but they have to _move_. Now.

Alex snaps his laptop shut and grabs Michael’s shoulder, using it to both focus his attention and help leverage himself up off the floor.

“Run.”


	18. Chapter 18

“I know you’re afraid but we can’t hide in this closet forever,” Michael murmurs.

Alex wants to argue, to insist that he’s a four-tour combat veteran and he does not get _scared_ while hiding in a _closet,_ thank you very much — but then he’s forced to admit that the dark, slimy feeling sliding through his chest is exactly that: fear.

“You’re right,” he whispers. “I am afraid. But not of what’s out there.”

Michael sighs, like he knew that response was coming before Alex ever even opened his mouth; Alex is surprised, once again, by just how well they actually _do_ know each other despite, well, everything.

“You don’t ever have to be scared of me, Alex. Not ever.”

They’ve managed to make their way back to the janitorial closet without being seen and replaced the toolbox and paint. The last step should be simple — the exit from the employee-only entrance is right across the hall.

But Alex isn’t really thinking about that, andhe knows he’s not alone. Neither of them have forgotten for one second what they were discussing before hiding in here.

_Here_ being a closet that’s nowhere near big enough for two grown men (let alone all the emotional baggage between them); they’re forced to stand so close that Alex can feel Michael’s every exhale in rhythmic warm brushes over his face, smell his shampoo and the faint scent of soap left on his skin.

The light filtering in through the vent in the door is just enough to see the the bump in Michael’s nose, the way his eyes shine, the sharp line of his jaw.

A few of Alex’s favorite things.

“We agreed that we were going to keep it professional,” he says, “and focus on the mission.”

Michael grins, shrugging as much as the impossible combination of the small space and his broad shoulders will allow.

“I’m multitasking.”

“Michael—“

“Look, I’m on mission, okay? We got your gadget hooked up and the wall is good as new. We’re currently stuck in a closet, yes, but that’s temporary and unrelated to what’s going on between us.”

Alex sighs, eyes unfocused, looking at some unseen threat he feels lurking in the distance. “This is too dangerous—“

“Yeah, so you keep telling me. But if that’s true, if there’s a good chance something is going to happen to me, then I want you to know the truth.” He barely has to move in order to reach for Alex’s hands. “The truth is that I love you.”

The fear in Alex’s chest slides to his gut, squirming at that word, at its present tense, at Michael’s seeming ease with its use.

“ _Love,”_ Alex says, the word like grease slicked across his tongue, “has never been our problem. It’s all the stuff that comes after.” He shakes his head, staring up at the bare lightbulb overhead, the thick coating of dust on it visible even with it turned off. “We’re going to go back to Roswell in a couple of days, and you’ll remember that I’m still an airman, still a Manes, and still more complicated than what you’re looking for.”

He makes himself be brave and meet Michael’s eyes. “I can’t take losing you again. I just can’t.”

Michael squeezes his hands tightly and it rocks Alex for a second to feel the equal strength in both of them, the smooth, healthy skin stretched across Michael’s knuckles.

He’d gotten so used to the scars.

“You are the _only_ thing I’m looking for,” Michael insists. “I’m sorry I’ve spent so long being too chickenshit to admit it.”

Alex feels drunk, or dizzy, or _something_. Maybe he’s having a small stroke. Maybe there’s not enough oxygen in this closet for both of them. He leans sideways half an inch, just enough to rest some of his weight against the wall.

But it doesn’t help him feel steadier. Not at all.

“Look,” he says, trying not to sound as flustered as he feels, “we just...we need to get out of here. Get a chance to breathe, to think— then, I don’t know. We’ll see how we feel in the clear light of day.”

He doesn’t wait for Michael to respond before rotating his wrist a bit to check his watch. The glowing small hand approaches 5, and Alex swears softly. “We’ve missed our window.”

Michael drops his hands and sighs, his whole body seeming to deflate.

“We had a window?”

Alex nods, the change of topic sending a wave of relief crashing warm and salty over his heart. “I hacked into the hotel security system and set a smoke detector to start going off in the lobby. It was supposed to buy us enough distraction from the front desk attendant to get back out into the guest areas. But that happened ten minutes ago.”

Michael’s expression shutters as Alex watches, all heat and hope and desperation now boarded up behind a facade of focused calculations. “So now we need something to distract the front desk?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Michael says. “I have a plan.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Am I going to like it?”

“...Probably not. Give me ninety seconds and then head straight for our room.”

And then Michael slips silently out the closet door.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re keeping track of the [prompts](https://harpers-mirror.tumblr.com/post/141253460646/first-sentence-writing-prompts), this is the one where I cheated a tiny bit and changed a word (house to hotel). 👻

“No, the hotel is definitely not haunted, why do you ask?”

The prim desk attendant tilts her head at Michael a little quizzically, a strand of silky blond hair sliding over her cheek.

“I just figured there had to have been a lot of deaths here,” he says, practically draped across the desk with a rakish grin, “because your good looks are _killer.”_

It’s a terrible line, but terrible lines have sort of become his signature move over the last ten years — with a surprisingly high success rate.

(Of course, that might have more to do with the hair and smile and bone structure than the actual words he uses.)

The woman behind the desk rolls her eyes, but she also flips her hair over her shoulder with a little smile, so Michael’s grin grows even wider: another victory for bad pickup lines.

He’s got her.

Getting here had been easy enough — he’d used his power to knock a pencil off the desk, then popped out from the employee-only door while she’d bent down to retrieve it. By the time she was upright, he’d arranged his body on the far side of the desk and was laying the charm on thick enough to keep her from wondering how he’d seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

“You got any breaks coming up?” Michael asks, holding out a hand. “I’d like to buy you a drink at the hotel bar, maybe get to know you a little...”

He steers her away from the desk with a hand on the small of her back; out of the corner of his eye he sees Alex slip down the hall.

He’s probably imagining it, but he’d swear the look on Alex’s face is more than the expected vague disapproval at Michael’s antics. It looks closer to…jealousy.

Maybe even _hurt._

But then Michael blinks and Alex is already out of sight, safely headed back to their room; Michael plans on doing the same as soon as he spends enough time with this woman that he doesn’t seem suspicious.

But then they start chatting over drinks (the bar is closed so they pour for themselves — neat whiskey for him, Jack and Diet Coke for…shit, he’d done that thing where he’d asked her name and then immediately stopped listening. Now he’s going to have to call her “sweetheart” or “babe” or “darlin’” for the entire conversation. Damn it.)

And somewhere in their trading of mindless pleasantries, he gets an idea. She works here, so she might know something that could help him. Help Alex. Help this whole mission stop being the most confusing, frustrating experience of his largely confusing and frustrating life.

“Darlin’,” he drawls, noting the way her blue eyes are already a little glassy, “any chance you’d give me a tour of this place? All the special employee-only parts regular guests don’t get to see?”

She giggles and puts her finger to her lips, saying “Shhh,” in a faux whisper as she slides off the barstool and beckons him to follow along behind her.

It’s largely just spartan and utilitarian work areas, the manager’s office and back hallway he and Alex had already seen, the electrical room with its flawlessly covered sledgehammered hole, the laundry room and kitchen and break room —but then they step into a service elevator, she presses the down button, and he’s hoping that things are about to get more interesting.

“This place has a basement?” Michael asks.

“Yeah. _I’m_ not even supposed to be down here, but it’s got some really interesting design elements original to the structure.” She leans in a little closer, as if what she’s about to say is a secret. “I’m working on my master’s in historical preservation.”

The elevator doors slide open and they emerge into a bright, clinically spare room. Filing cabinets march in neat rows as far as he can see. Boxes of organized supplies are stacked in a corner. Housekeeping carts, emptied and wiped down, are lined up in another.

There’s no ominous wall of weaponry or glowing iridescent alien tech piled on tables; no uniformed soldiers rush in, ready to take him into custody.

Michael can’t tell whether he’s disappointed or relieved.

So he nods along politely as the woman gestures at the ceiling, discussing voussoirs and corbels and a bunch of other architectural stuff he can’t be bothered to understand; Michael just stares and wonders, yet again, if there really are any remaining Project Shepherd ties here.

Maybe they left it long ago. Maybe he and Alex are just chasing ghosts.

They go back into the elevator and she presses the button back up to the lobby. But Michael notices a button _below_ the one for the basement on the control panel, and it looks slightly different than the others. Smaller, darker, and square; maybe not even a button at all.

“What’s that one for?” Michael asks.

“Oh, there’s a subbasement below us. It’s really small and has been flooded for years. Nobody goes down there; the button doesn’t even work.” She pushes it and, true to her word, nothing happens. Not really. But Michael would swear a light flickers behind her finger for a second with an almost inaudible _whir_ , like maybe it’s scanning for a fingerprint.

And she just doesn’t have the right one.

It’s clear that she doesn’t know anything about it; if anything is going on here she isn’t involved. She’s a front desk clerk (and a rather irresponsible one, given how much time she’s spent with him instead of working). That’s all.

So much for Michael’s brilliant scheme; every second of this half-assed tour was nothing but a waste of time.

They go back to the lobby, the sky outside the large windows lightening to a deep purple with the impending sunrise. Michael reaches out to shake her hand goodbye but she’s suddenly crowding in close to him, small hands grabbing at his waist as she rises up on her toes—

—And before even really thinking about it, before processing where he is and who he’s supposed to be and the dozens of reasons why this is a truly _terrible_ idea, he leans down and to give her a simple kiss.

For him, it’s nothing more than an easy way to keep her from being suspicious.

And it’s not a good decision, obviously, but it feels like it’s been so long since Michael made one of those that he’s not sure he remembers how.

Besides, he’s only aiming for her cheek — but then she turns her head.

So Michael winds up awkwardly kissing the corner of her glossy mouth; he can feel the sticky shine transferring to his lips as he pulls away.

It’s all absolutely meaningless; it was over practically as soon as it began.

But as soon as they separate and he turns to head upstairs, he sees Coordinator Barbara watching him from the corner. And the way her eyes have widened behind the steaming cup of coffee lifted halfway to her lipsticked mouth tells him that she doesn’t find it all nearly as harmless as he does.

Not at all.


	20. Chapter 20

“In my defense, it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.”

Michael’s voice holds the exact same tone as it had when he was seventeen and petulantly defending himself to an emo Alex Manes about stealing a guitar from the music room. He hears it and hates it, but he can’t quite seem to change it.

It feels like there’s a metaphor for his life somewhere in that.

Alex arches an eyebrow. “Flirting with a hotel employee in an attempt to gain access to classified information about a black op that is most likely still operating on site? When your cover is a happily _married_ man on a couple’s retreat with his _husband_?”

“...I can see now that there might have been a flaw in the plan.”

They’re waiting in one of the hotel’s small meeting rooms, which has been transformed into a psychologist’s office for the duration of the retreat. They’ve been “recommended” (as in, _required_ ) to attend an emergency one-on-one couples therapy session.

Apparently, it’s a sign of trouble in their relationship that Michael was very publicly flirting with and kissing someone else in the small hours of the morning. Barbara had tracked them down at breakfast — her unbuttoned beige cardigan flying open with righteous indignation as her sensible loafers clicked rapidly over the hardwood floor — and promptly sent them both to counseling.

Michael is slouched in his chair and resigned to his fate; Alex appears to be nowhere near forgiving him for it. His face is blank but Michael can see the gears turning behind his eyes; he’s strategizing.

Again.

Michael is beginning to find it exhausting.

The therapist comes in, a petite woman with dark hair and enormous red plastic glasses, and she gets right to business.

“So I’d like to start with getting a sense of who you are as a couple. Tell me about yourselves.”

She’s answered by profound silence, eventually broken only by the scratch of Michael’s jeans against the chair’s upholstery as he shifts, awkwardly.

“Okay,” she tries again, “let’s make it simple. How did you meet?”

“High school,” Alex answers.

“He was my first love,” Michael adds, sensing Alex stiffening a little beside him. “My only love,” he clarifies.

Alex exhales, maybe a little louder than necessary.

“So you’ve been together since?”

They both laugh. “Definitely not.”

“And why is that?”

Michael expects Alex to let him squirm, to sit there with that quiet composure and be privately amused at his discomfort, but he doesn’t. He starts talking immediately, like he had come prepared, like he’d rehearsed his lines...

...or like maybe he’s telling the _truth_.

“We can’t seem to figure out the happily ever after part. We’ve got the epic love and passion, but not day-to-day life. The stable, happy couple stuff.”

Michael blinks. “I want that stuff.”

“Yeah, but you just want to be good for _someone_.”

“I want _you_ to be that someone.” Michael doesn’t know how to be more clear. He has told Alex he _loves_ him multiple times, how can he not know this by now—

“Then why are you kissing other people?” Alex asks, voice small and serious. “It’s like déjà vu — we start getting closer, having real conversations about this thing between us, and then you run off with someone else.”

_Shit._ Michael feels like he stepped into a bear trap, its sharp metal teeth tearing into his flesh.

“That’s not true, and it’s not fair. Last night wasn’t even supposed to _happen_ , and it certainly had nothing to do with you.” Michael leans even further back in his chair, as if putting physical distance between their hearts will make any difference. He’s wounded and he’s angry; he’s speaking before his brain can catch up. “But even if it did, it’s not as if playing tug-of-war with our relationship isn’t something you can understand. After all, that was pretty much your signature move for a decade.”

Alex looks like he was just punched in the throat.

And even though it felt good to say it, relieving pressure like draining an infected wound, Michael immediately wants to take it all back. He’s wishing for the billionth time that he was smart enough to build a time machine instead of a spaceship, to fly himself to a moment before he did some idiotic thing he regretted.

Most of them involving Alex.

The therapist halts his ensuing pain spiral, intervening with, “You kissing someone else doesn’t have anything to do with your relationship with Alex?”

“No! I was just— I’m just—“ Michael forces himself to take a deep breath, desperately trying to walk the line between being honest with Alex and hiding the truth from the therapist.

(He’s not a person who’s accustomed to choosing his words carefully, so it’s slow going.)

Eventually, he lands on, “I guess I’ve just been looking for what we used to have. Something simple and sweet, something that feels good.”

He licks his lips, then turns a little to face Alex, to make sure he knows that this part isn’t an act; that this is the truest thing he knows. “I thought that meant I had to look somewhere else because our history was so dark, but I know now that’s not how it works. Our history doesn’t define us. What we do right now does.”

Alex swallows, reading Michael’s eyes; Michael forces himself to allow it, to fight the sudden tremble in his hands, the strange sensation fluttering around in his chest.

“How come you were never able to say that before?” Alex asks.

Michael rubs at his cheek, letting himself take a second to focus on the sharp stab of stubble against his palm. The physical sensation makes it easier to bare the emotional pain, somehow.

“My whole life, all I ever wanted was to keep my family safe. And then I failed, spectacularly.” He huffs a humorless laugh, rolling his eyes to the wooden planks of the ceiling. “Max _died_ and Isobel…the things Noah did to her, I don’t even have words for. So if I couldn’t be good enough for them, the only two people I had spent my entire life caring for, then how could I be good enough for you? How could I be good for anyone?”

“But you still tried. With Maria.”

Michael sighs, hand raising to nervously adjust a cowboy hat that isn’t there, so his useless fingers start to rake through his hair instead, stopping short and tugging at the roots when he remembers that doing so would make it stand up all crazy.

Eventually he has no choice but to surrender to stillness, hands falling into his lap.

“That wasn’t me trying,” he mutters. “That was me escaping into something that I thought would be easier. Simpler.” Michael stares down at his hands; they’re bare, mirror images of one another. He’s allowed to be healed, here; no hiding behind a bandanna necessary. “But it’s true, what Max always tried to tell me in his weird, condescending sort of way — you can’t lie to your heart, not really, and not for long. The truth always sneaks out.”

Alex asks the question before the therapist can. “And your truth is?”

They’re both standing on a precipice, only two choices to make. Retreat painfully, _cowardly_ , back down the rocky road that led them here — or leap off into the black abyss. Trust that they’ll be enough to save each other.

Michael’s mind is already made up; he’s not sure he ever had much of a choice. Not since he was seventeen and Alex offered him a warm place to sleep, since Michael’s heart found a safe place to rest.

He’s been falling for a decade. He was just too stubborn to admit it.

“You. I want to be with you.” He shrugs. “I trust you, Alex. I finally believe that we deserve to have good things, and this could be a _really_ _good_ thing. We don’t know, because we never gave it a fair shot.” He takes a deep breath and blows it out, trying to let it loosen some of the barbed wire he’s kept wound tightly around his heart. “That’s all I’m asking for. A chance, a real chance.” Michael smiles, small and private but self-assured. “That’s all I’ve got so far.”

And Alex’s eyes are suspiciously shiny as he stares back, but his voice is strong. “I think that’s a pretty good start.”

“You know,” the therapist interjects at exactly the wrong fucking moment, “you should both give yourselves a little more credit. It’s not fair to say that you never gave your relationship a chance, because it takes a lot of commitment to get married. There was an engagement, a ceremony, a legal contract, and promises made in front of your loved ones. You shouldn’t discount that as if it never happened.”

And just like that the tension between them _snaps_ , splintering over the lie they’re supposed to be living.

There’s no room for the truth here; it’s too dangerous in so many ways.

“Right,” Michael says with a curt nod, thumb spinning the silver band on his ring finger. “You’re right. We gave it a try with the wedding.”

Alex makes a small sound, one that Michael can’t quite identify, but his face is impenetrably blank.

So, in order to avoid more glancing blows with the truth, they spend the rest of the session telling outrageous lies — Alex claims that he lost his leg wrestling an alligator in the swamps of Central Florida; Michael spins an elaborate story about spending six months hunting chupacabra in the Chihuahuan Desert.

He finds it sort of funny in a painful way, like laughing in embarrassment after slipping and falling flat on his ass.

But even still, by the time they’re finally out of the session they’re exhausted, wrung out, and utterly incapable of facing each other for even one more minute.

“Look,” Michael says, pressing the elevator call button with a slumping, full-bodied lean, “I think we just need some space.”

Alex stands as if he’s made of porcelain and trapped inside a hammer factory; even the slightest move and he might shatter.

“Did you mean it, what you said back there? The parts about— the parts that mattered?”

Michael looks up at him, feeling haunted, certain that deep purple circles have bloomed beneath his eyes.

But his voice is steady. “Every word.”

Alex blinks, carefully pressing his lips together for a second. “I need...I need to think.”

The elevator arrives and he moves into it; Michael stays right where he is, lifting a hand in a half-hearted wave as the doors close between them.

“And I need a drink.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very smutty — you’ll want to skip the vast majority of it if that’s not your sort of thing.

“Where have you _been_ , I was ready to call the police!”

Alex throws the door open so fast it creates a breeze that ruffles his hair — which is poking up like he’s been raking his fingers through it for the last two hours straight.

Michael remains slumped in the doorway, exhausted and utterly unprepared emotionally for...whatever this is.

“Ha, right,” he responds, slouching into the room. “We’re trying — and mostly failing, in case you hadn’t noticed — to steal top secret military information about my alien ancestors. You’re not gonna call the _cops_.”

“I would have,” Alex says as soon as the door is shut behind them, his hands roaming over Michael’s face and chest and shoulders as if seeing him with his eyes isn’t enough, as if his skin also needs the knowledge that Michael is whole and healthy and _here_. “If something had happened to you, I would have called the police and your siblings and every airman, soldier, and sailor I’ve met in the last decade. I would have done everything to find you. Everything.”

Michael shifts, feeling off-balance. He hasn’t ever had anyone keeping tabs on him, _worrying_ over him. It’s like trying on a brand new pair of boots and finding the leather is somehow already broken in and hugging his feet just right; it’s strange, but it suits him.

He thinks he might like it.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I was just giving you space for a few hours — grabbing a liquid lunch at the bar, poking into things around the hotel. Thought you said you needed to think.”

And Alex is all up in what would be considered Michael’s personal space if he was the type of person who believed in such a concept. His eyes are wild, his hands greedy; he backs Michael up until his boot heel hits the door with a solid _thud._

“I thought I did. I thought I needed to be careful and cautious, to calculate risks and rewards and come to a rational decision.” Alex’s serious facade cracks, split open by a blinding smile. “But, turns out, all I could think about was how stupid it was that I wasn’t kissing you.”

Alex’s voice has turned to molten lava and he’s literally fucking _crowding_ Michael up against the door, everything about him hot and fast and desperate. His fingers are halfway down Michael’s shirt buttons before Michael’s brain catches up to what’s happening and his hand goes straight for Alex’s belt buckle.

And then he very emphatically _stops_.

“I’m into this, believe me, I’m into it,” Michael gasps, forcing his shaking hands to still for a second, “but I’m serious this time, Alex. This is it — I’m all in. I need to know you are too before _this,_ ” he says with an unambiguous tug on Alex’s belt, “can happen.”

Alex looks straight at him, cheeks flushed, hair wild, eyes as serious as they’ve ever been.

“I love you. I have _always_ loved you. And I regret every day that I let pass without telling you.”

And Michael grins so wide it _hurts_.

“Yeah okay, that’s good enough for me.”

Then Michael blinks and Alex is down on his knees in front of him, the hard wood of the door a solid pressure at his back, pleasure singing through every nerve. His pants and underwear are snagged around his boots and he’d like to kick them off except Alex is already taking him in his mouth, hot and wet and _deep._ Alex’s cheeks hollow and his hand twists and he’s not teasing, he’s not taking his time; it’s as if this has been building inside him for _years_ and it’s all surging out right now. All Michael can do is hang on, keep his shaking knees holding him upright, and try to memorize this exact moment so he can play it over and over again inside his mind.

Alex licks and sucks and pumps his hand in time with his mouth; the air fills with the deliciously filthy sounds of wet skin on skin. Michael’s fingers comb through the silky strands of Alex’s hair and _fuck_ he’ll go to therapy every goddamned day if it means they’ll end up like this at the end of it.

At some point he manages to focus just a little, just enough to use his powers to rid them both of their remaining clothes and send the bottle of lube from his suitcase into Alex’s waiting hand. And then his legs are spread wide and Alex’s mouth is still hot and tight around him while his hand dips back, pressing one lubed finger inside Michael.

Everything is hot and tight and wet and Michael doesn’t know why he’s still standing right next to the door when the bed is huge and comfortable and _right there—_

—but then he looks down at Alex on his knees and feels his talented tongue twirling around the head of his cock while his fingers steadily open him up and he stops thinking about anything else.

Warmth curls tight in his belly, love and hope and a sense of _rightness_ rooting themselves in deep, weaving into the most secret, sacred part of him.

This is where Michael belongs; this is where he has always belonged.

His breath starts coming in tighter, shorter hisses, his head slamming back against the door and eyes squeezing shut; he’s doing everything he can to keep it together but goddammit he’s _ready_ and if Alex doesn’t get inside him _right now_ he’s going to lose his entire fucking mind.

“Not a problem,” Alex says, grinning up at him with swollen, wet, red lips, and a distant part of Michael realizes he must have been saying all that shit out loud but most of him is distracted by the way Alex is gripping Michael’s thighs hard enough to bruise. Something deep inside Michael thrills at the knowledge that he’s going to be able to see the evidence of this tomorrow; he’s secretly always liked it when Alex marked him.

And then Alex is pulling himself back up to his feet, hands moving to Michael’s hips in order to spin him around.

Michael suddenly finds himself facing the door, fingernails biting into the soft pine of the frame and Alex is against his back, gripping Michael’s hip with his left hand and guiding himself into position with the right.

He pushes inside in one long, slow, smooth motion and Michael can’t process it, can’t feel anything except overwhelmed, heat and fullness and a sobbing _relief_ like a spear has been yanked from his chest. The last bits of doubt and uncertainty leave him; he’s too full of _Alex_ to feel anything else.

And then Alex starts to move, strong and solid and so perfect, and it’s all Michael can do to hang on for the ride.

His arms strain to brace himself against the doorway, muscles and tendons stretching the skin of his forearms, shaking and slicked with sweat. Michael tries to rock back against him but it’s just an echo of Alex’s rhythm; Alex is the one doing this, all of this. He’s the one making Michael feel this way, so full and happy and wanted and _good_.

And then Alex lifts his own right thigh to get a better angle and thrusts somehow impossibly _deeper,_ Michael gasps and twists his shoulders to the right a little, reaching around the dangling prosthetic to grab Alex’s solid, flexing ass cheek with his hand and pull him in even closer.

He’s lost, pushing against the door and pulling Alex in, moaning and panting and sweating and swearing as the room fades away and there’s nothing but the two of them and the racing, mounting pleasure screaming in his blood.

Alex reaches around to wrap his hand around Michael, stroking in time with his thrusts and his gasping breath against the shell of Michael’s ear and that’s it. Michael is racing off a cliff, soaring and tumbling and shaking as he paints the door in white stripes, Alex’s name falling from his lips like gratitude, like a covenant.

He’s barely aware of Alex thrusting a few more times before coming inside him, his fingers so tight and hot on Michael’s hips they feel like a brand. Michael feels Alex’s forehead drop to his shoulder, sweaty hair sticking to his skin, hot breath still coming in quick bursts against his back.

Michael’s legs feel like they’re seconds from giving out; he wonders if they’ll ever work properly again or if he’ll melt into the rug and spend the rest of his life in this hotel room, stuck in some floating, formless state.

He thinks he’d be okay with that.

Alex stirs, beginning to carefully disentangle himself and they’re both a mess, covered in sweat and come and spent desperation, but neither one heads for the shower just yet.

Instead, Michael just turns, limply; Alex rests his arms loosely on Michael’s waist.

Slowly, gently, Michael trails his fingers over the scar on Alex’s forehead, tracing his eyebrows and cheekbones, ghosting across his jaw. Neither of them have shaved in the time they’ve been here and the stubble has darkened, started to soften. Alex’s eyelashes are so long and thick and half-lowered; the slivers of dark eyes visible behind them are _shining_.

Alex catches the tip of Michael’s roaming thumb with his lip, and Michael eases forward just enough to kiss him, soft and slow and easy.

This kiss somehow feels exactly the same as all the others they’ve shared this weekend and completely different at the same time. It’s as tender and loving as any touch Michael has ever felt — but then, he’s _always_ felt those things from Alex.

And now he knows he always will.

There’s no need to rush anymore, no imminent danger to hide from; it’s so much better than all the times they were together in the Airstream with its squeaking second-hand mattress beneath them and the stale air so full of unspoken hurt and worries, dust motes and fumes from half-empty bottles of acetone clogging their lungs.

Here, there’s just this: a fresh mountain breeze trickling in through the French doors, the warm touch of the man he loves, and the quiet promise of a long future stretching all the way to the horizon.


	22. Chapter 22

“I don’t care that it’s 2:00 am, we need pie.”

Michael is grinning and crawling out of bed, reaching for the first shirt he finds crumpled on the floor — it happens to be Alex’s, but he puts it on anyway.

They’ve been passed out for hours, finally exhausted some time after round three and blissfully tangled up together.

“And how, exactly, do you think you’re going to get pie?” Alex hasn’t yet found sufficient motivation to put on clothes or stand upright or move a single inch from the pile of soft sheets and blankets. The only thing making him consider doing so is that Michael is no longer within arm’s reach. “It’s late and we’re stuck in this hotel in the middle of nowhere.”

“We’re gonna sneak into the kitchen and steal it, of course,” Michael answers, ignoring his boxers and wriggling his commando self into his jeans. “What kind of secret-government-agency-infiltrating spies are we if we can’t even manage to procure ourselves a couple slices of warm appley goodness?”

“Terrible ones,” Alex answers. “We are _terrible_ spies, who are halfway through their last night in this hotel and still haven’t infiltrated anything except each other’s pants.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Michael says, throwing jeans and a shirt and crutches at Alex, somehow knowing that he’s too comfortable to deal with the prosthetic right now. “But first I need brain food. Brain _pie_.”

Alex frowns, both at Michael and at his growing acceptance that he is actually going to have to get out of this bed; Michael just shrugs.

“What can I say? Sex makes me hungry.”

So they make their way down the hallways and stairwell, everything silent and still and soft, the hotel seemingly asleep. Alex wishes he could join it — the days have been so long, the nights so restless. He just wants to be done with this stupid mission and go back home, to his real life, and take this somehow beautifully _real_ relationship with him.

They reach the kitchen, the cavernous space echoing and shrouded in shadow. The giant range and its vent hood hulk along one wall like some kind of mythical beast; Alex absently takes his hand off one crutch in order to trail his fingertips across the cool, clean stainless steel counter.

And, showing far more focus on this pie mission than he has for their real one, Michael methodically checks every shelf and cabinet and even peeks into the enormous oven, but it’s no use.

There is nothing even remotely pie-like anywhere in sight.

Alex just drifts along behind him, uneven gait of foot and crutches thumping against the floor like his pounding, skipping heart; it’s impossible, it’s ridiculous, it’s every stupid teenage daydream he ever had come to life. He loves Michael Guerin; he’s in a relationship with Michael Guerin.

Michael Guerin _loves him back_.

Alex secretly wishes he could carve their initials into the bark of every tree in this forest; he wants to tattoo them on his chest right above his heart.

And he knows, without any doubt, that if he chose to do so, Michael would go with him and hold his hand through the stinging pain. Hell, he might even get a matching one.

It all makes him feel like pixies are playing hopscotch across his ribs, like champagne bubbles are fizzing in his lungs. He’s dizzy and delirious and delighted.

But right now Michael seems oblivious to Alex’s emotional revelations; he only has eyes for his absurd pie quest.

And the only place left to check, the last chance for success, is the refrigerator. It’s one of those enormous industrial things that they can walk into, a room with a heavy door that opens with a metallic click, frigid air that curls with cold moisture pouring out.

They step inside, food stacked on the metal shelving all around them, labeled and sorted and organized — but Alex isn’t really looking at it.

Instead, he’s distracted by the way the cold is turning the tip of Michael’s nose pink and how he keeps rubbing Alex’s arms with his hands to try to keep him warm; it’s just such a sweet, small, couple-y type gesture that Alex’s heart is melting despite the frigid temperatures.

And he’s suddenly feeling hungry for something else.

“What?” Michael asks, the sharp angles of his face diffusing behind the fog of his breath. His shirt — _Alex_ ’s shirt — is open halfway down his chest as always, like the man is morally opposed to buttons gathering in numbers greater than three. His jeans hang on his hard hips but cling a little to his muscular thighs, his disastrous hair advertising every sordid thing he’d been up to for the last twelve hours.

Alex thinks he looks like sin.

(After all, Dante did say that the depths of hell were _frozen_.)

And two seconds later Alex has dropped one crutch in a loud clatter to the refrigerator floor and his hand is down Michael’s pants, their breath marrying in bursts of clouds, the heat of Michael’s skin jarring in contrast to the chill coating the rest of him.

Michael just leans back against the shelves, a giant block of cheese teetering precariously above his right shoulder as he rolls his hips into Alex’s greedy fingers, letting him take whatever he wants.

He always does.

And it always leaves Alex a little panicky — giddy and overwhelmed and terrified and _thrilled_.

It’s just that Michael does everything heart-first; Alex knows this, has always known it, but it still strikes him as such a reckless act of _bravery_. Michael’s feelings are there in everything, in the expression on his face and the deliberate care of his touch. It always feels like too much at first for Alex, all-consuming, something he’ll _drown_ in, but Alex knows now that’s only because he doesn’t have much experience in being loved, in softness and caring and raw nakedness. He’s still fully clothed but he’s never felt so exposed, so vulnerable—

—so _happy_.

Something within him that’s been frozen for years has been slowly thawing since the moment they arrived for this retreat; now, under Michael’s heated gaze it finally gives way with a _crack_ , violent and almost painful, like a glacier calving into the sea with a thunderous roar. 

Michael is panting and babbling some enthusiastic nonsense and stroking Alex’s cheek with his hand; Alex thumbs the wet tip of Michael’s cock and pumps his hand faster.

He went skydiving with some Air Force buddies once. The first few seconds he’d spent in total free fall, his stomach in his throat and heart pounding in his ears as he watched the earth rush toward him at a dizzying speed — that’s what being with Michael used to feel like. Exciting, yes, but also terrifying. Dangerous.

Now it feels like after the parachute opened and he was still falling, still electrified and alive, but also at such peace. Knowing he was safe, that he’d be back on solid ground, that he’d live to do this again and again if he wanted.

The shelving is making a rhythmic thumping sound against the wall but he doesn’t really notice, doesn’t hear anything except the slide of his skin against Michael’s denim waistband and the incoherent sounds of pleasure they’re both making until—

“ _Ahem._ ”

Both of their hands freeze — Michael’s on Alex’s cheek, Alex’s still wrapped around Michael’s cock.

And then they turn with synchronized dread toward the refrigerator door, still propped open and spilling golden light across the grayish kitchen.

A hotel employee stands there in starched khaki anal retentiveness, his disapproving frown a seemingly permanent fixture on his face.

“While it is the goal of the retreat that our couples use this time to, ahh, _reconnect_ , we prefer that you do so in the comfort and privacy of your suite.”

He steps to the side and gestures for them to leave; Alex’s cheeks blaze but Michael is laughing, practically fucking _giggling_ as he retrieves Alex’s crutch from the ground and ushers him out the door with a hand at the small of his back.

He’s laughing so hard Alex can feel it vibrating through the fingertips brushing over his spine.

It seeps into his bones and lungs and throat; before he can help himself Alex is laughing too, free and wild, the sound echoing through the empty rooms and halls and wrapping them in a bubble of joy all the way back to their room.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One week left! I've updated the tags, so be sure to check those. I hope this is bringing a tiny bit of joy to your day. ❤️

“At this point, what else could possibly go wrong?”

Michael is practically _cackling_ , collapsing against the still slightly stained door of their suite, fingers tangled up with Alex’s.

“Well,” Alex starts, knowing that he’s being far more practical than Michael wants but needing him to hear this anyway, “we still haven’t been captured or tortured or hauled off to some government black site to never be heard from again, so…a lot?”

Michael spreads his arms as wide as his smile. “I don’t care, Alex. I feel—“

“—So happy that you’re invincible? Yeah, me too. That’s why this is so dangerous.” He leans down, knocking on his prosthetic where it leans haphazardly against the couch, the sound a little less hollow than it normally is. “Because I’m living proof that we’re _not._ ”

They’ve left the French doors open and the fire has burned out; a spring storm rumbles outside, rain lashing the window and spattering against the wood floor. Their room usually feels like a warm, golden embrace, safety and comfort that’s untouchable by anything going on outside, but there’s a distinct chill in the damp air now.

Alex walks over and shuts the door firmly; Michael rebuilds the fire.

It helps, but only a little. There’s only so much that heat and the crackle of flames can do to combat the flashing lightning and booming thunder.

“We have a few more hours until sunrise,” Michael says, settling in on the sofa. “Do we need to go after any more information or will you be able to get everything we need from the device you installed last night?”

And there it is, the question Alex has been dreading.

Because he has an answer, a plan that has been quietly assembling itself in the back of his busy mind.

And Michael is going to _hate_ it.

Alex keeps his voice cool and neutral, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. “We have a significant amount of information that I haven’t had ample time to sort through, but there’s most likely documents too sensitive to risk being digitized. And the only way we’re going to access that—“

“Is by going in and taking it.” Michael sighs. “I guess we’ve got one more night of sneaking around ahead of us then.”

“Actually,” Alex says, trying to project confidence that he doesn’t quite feel, “there’s one thing we haven’t tried yet. One thing that gives us a chance of actually gaining access to what we need, and getting to the bottom of this once and for all.”

Michael raises his eyebrows. “Yeah? What?”

Alex spreads his fingers, staring at the perfectly trimmed nails, the steady stillness of his fingers; lightning flashes and catches on his silver wedding band, making it shine.

“Project Shepherd is a military operation. And I am still in the military, with a high enough rank that I should get clearance.”

Michael is shaking his head before Alex finishes speaking. “Alex, no, the whole idea of this stupid marriage cover was that we weren’t going to expose ourselves. It’s not worth the risk—“

“But this is why I stayed in, Guerin. I re-enlisted to keep pursuing the military’s alien agenda — and this is our chance to make it worth it. I can say I’ve been undercover while testing security, that you’re an actor I hired in order to blend in at the retreat...”

“No!” Michael is standing now, glaring. At what, Alex isn’t entirely sure — possibly at Alex and the hotel and the military and this entire planet. “Absolutely not.”

“But this is our chance—“

“No.”

And the argument carries on, continuing this way for another half an hour, but deep down Alex knew that they were only ever going to end up here: with him striding up to one of the plainclothes guards patrolling the hall, holding up his military ID and using his most commanding voice.

“Captain Alex Manes, US Air Force. I’m here to inspect this facility and I need to speak to your superior.”

The guard blinks a little too much, but otherwise maintains his composure. “I’m sorry, sir. The hotel manager has left for the day—“

“No, I mean your commanding officer, soldier. Your _real_ superior.”

The man stares at him, seemingly unsure of what to do, but he’s saved by a middle-aged man in a crisp gray shirt and black slacks emerging from a side door, moving with such stealth he seemingly coalesces into existence from the shadows themselves.

“I’m General Mackenzie of the United States Army. It’s a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance, Captain Manes,” he says, eyes sharp, hands remaining in his pockets rather than reaching for a handshake.

Something tickles at the back of Alex’s brain, a small red light beginning to flash an alarm. “You’ve heard of me.”

“Oh, I know _all_ about you,” the man says, teeth glinting behind his pale, thin lips. Alex notes the guard he first flagged down moving into position behind him, another guard appearing and flanking his far side.

Thunder booms through the thick walls, rumbling the floor beneath Alex’s boots; the lights flicker and fade to brown for a moment before resuming.

And then the general is ushering Alex into the room he had emerged from, one that wasn’t on either set of blueprints Alex has seen for this place. It’s windowless, the only exits the door they just walked through and another, heavier one at the far end. Every inch of the wall space in between is covered in monitors; full-color, high definition images of every corner of the hotel surround him.

The warning light in Alex’s brain becomes a _siren._

“You see, Captain,” General Mackenzie continues, “this isn’t some backwater unsanctioned operation being run by your delusional daddy. This is a fully functional government facility with the sole purpose of assessing the alien threat on earth and conducting research into neutralizing it.”

Alex remains silent, eyes flicking across each of the feeds. There must be hundreds of cameras, maybe _thousands,_ showing areas and angles Alex had never dreamed were under surveillance.

Areas he and Michael had thought they were sneaking around in. Where they’d tampered with things, stolen things… _done_ things.

“As you can tell,” Mackenzie says as he turns toward the computer in the center of the room. “We have thermal scanners and facial recognition covering every inch of the property — we knew who you were and that you were accompanied by an alien from the moment you checked in. We just weren’t sure what your agenda was.”

He leans over the computer and clicks a few times, pulling up footage from _inside_ their room. There’s four separate views — there must be cameras in the air vent and smoke detector, embedded in the headboard, and hidden behind the bathroom mirror. Each recording shows lurid, pornographic footage of Alex and Michael having sex. Against the door, in the shower, tangled in the sweaty sheets.

Alex tastes bile.

The general grins, a malicious baring of teeth. “Guess we do now.”

Alex is frantically strategizing, running through possible escape scenarios, debating whether he tries to fight his way out now or wait to see if a better opportunity emerges.

But then soldiers in black fatigues swarm like flies; there’s half a dozen on Alex before he can even begin to form a plan.

His only real hope is that Michael is somehow still safe. He’d told him to hide, just in case things didn’t go their way, and he’s not sure where Michael went, hadn’t wanted to know—

—but apparently it hadn’t worked. Because the door behind them bangs open again and Michael is being dragged into the room by two more soldiers. 

And Michael is still fighting because of _course_ Michael fights, but he’s bleeding and injured and he doesn’t really stand a chance.

Alex will be comforted later by the fact that he doesn’t use his powers, doesn’t expose himself like that. It’s smart, because Michael doesn’t know that they’ve already figured out that he’s an alien. Michael holding back means that he thinks there’s a chance he’ll survive this, that he’ll escape.

Or that Alex will save him.

His blood is screaming to do it now, to rush into the fight, to slam knuckles into bone and feel it crunch beneath the force, to snap necks and feel the slide of a blade into flesh, but he knows he can’t take them all on alone. Couldn’t have even before the injury; the numbers in such a tight space are too insurmountable.

So he has no choice but to watch as they drag Michael away, barely conscious now, boot heels scraping against the floor. His blood falls in fat drops from his head wound, splattering on the polished wood.


	24. Chapter 24

“What’s with the pigtails?”

Michael is squinting through his swollen eyes, the crack in his lip dripping blood down his chin as he speaks. He’s handcuffed to a chair in a small concrete room and the soldier standing over him — Coordinator Barbara, as he had previously known her — has her hair in two brilliant red braids. She’s ditched the pretense of the khakis and penny loafers, favoring black fatigues and combat boots.

Only the incongruous braids remain.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like them,” Michael says, going for sarcastic levity and mostly achieving it despite the flecks of blood and spit that fly with his words, “but pigtails seem to undermine this whole ‘threatening’ thing you’re going for.”

He has no idea how long he’s been here — hours, maybe. Maybe longer. Consciousness keeps washing in and then receding like the tide.

“I don’t need to threaten you,” Barbara says.

“Oh, no? Cool, then just undo the cuffs, unlock the door, and I’ll be on my way.”

Barbara grins; she looks like a barracuda, all sharp teeth and dead eyes. “I don’t need to threaten you, because you’re already in my custody. I can just _do whatever I’d like_ to you, and they’d probably award me a medal for it.”

She comes closer, leaning in and staring at him, soullessly scrutinizing every inch. Michael suddenly feels a pang of sympathy for the apes at the zoo.

“But I don’t want a medal,” says Barbara (if that’s really her name, which Michael doubts — _shame, really,_ he thinks, a little hysterically, _since it suits her so well_.) “I want _money._ ”

Michael turns his head, spitting the blood from his mouth so he can talk. “Well, then you kidnapped the wrong man. I’ve got $7.69 in my account, sweetheart.”

“I can assure you, I’m not a sweetheart.” She narrows her already beady eyes; he wonders how she can see him at all now. “And I haven’t kidnapped a _man_ at all, now have I? No. You’re something else entirely.”

Michael’s heart is racing, slamming against hiscracked ribs so hard he’s worried they might shatter. But he fights to keep the panic off his face, to even attempt a _smile._

“Oh, I’m _all_ man,” he drawls, shifting in the chair so his big silver belt buckle catches the sickly florescent light glowing overhead. “Need me to show you?”

“I’m supposed to keep you in custody until your accomplice is dealt with—“ and at that Michael’s racing heart freezes and drops, black and cold and heavy as obsidian, “and then turn you over to the general like a good little soldier.”

Barbara leans close enough that he can tell she had tuna for her most recent meal; he doesn’t bother trying to keep the revulsion off his face. “But the money I can get from private interest groups for an actual live _alien,_ ” she huffs a laugh and spins on her heel, “I could buy my very own island _._ Hell, maybe an entire _country._ ”

Michael has been in some shit before. Jealous boyfriends trying to knock out his teeth in the Pony’s parking lot, a New Year’s Eve car crash with an 18-wheeler outside of Albuquerque, a bad peyote trip when he was 21 and stupid — not to mention covering up his sibling’s multiple homicides or feeling his bones crunch under Jesse Manes’ hammer — but he’s never faced anything on this level.

It feels like ice pouring down his spine; it feels like spiders skittering over his skin.

He has to get out of here, he has to somehow save Alex. They haven’t done anything to limit his powers yet, he’s not sure they know _how,_ but he can’t play that card until he has a plan, until he has some chance of success—

Somewhere in the distance, there’s a short, sharp shout.

Then a thump, like something heavy dropped to the floor.

Barbara moves to the door to check, but Michael doesn’t give her the chance. He uses her moment of distraction to throw her head-first across the room as hard as his telekinesis will allow, cracking her skull into the concrete wall.

She slides down in a bleeding, crumpled heap, utterly still, arms and legs akimbo.

Michael makes short work of his handcuffs, grabs the gun from Barbara’s belt while careful to avoid the rapidly spreading pool of blood saturating her already angrily red hair, and is headed for the door—

—when it’s flung inward.

A man seems to fill the doorway, red warning lights flashing in time with the blaring sirens, chaos and confusion clouding the air behind him.

Michael raises the gun on instinct, adrenaline setting his nerves on fire; he looks down the sight at the man in a black shirt, holding a taser in one hand and syringe in the other—

—Alex. It’s somehow Alex, _here,_ whole, free.

“Oh thank god,” Michael exhales, lowering the gun; it clatters to the bloodstained floor.

“Not yet,” Alex says. “We’ve got to run, now.”

Alex is crossing the room in quick strides, assessing the neutralized threat of Barbara on the floor, his calculating eyes taking inventory of Michael’s various cuts and bruises, mouth pressed in a hard, thin line.

“Let me guess,” Michael says with a lopsided, painful grin, “Come with you if I want to live?”

“God, you’re such a dork,” Alex mutters, hugging him so tightly it hurts, his cracked ribs sending a spear of pain up his side, but Michael doesn’t let go until Alex does, his hand tugging on Michael’s forearm to get him moving.

Michael is careful to give Barbara a wide berth as they cross back to the door, just in case; he’ll step over twelve more unconscious bodies as they twist through hallways and doors with electronic locks that Alex somehow swipes their way through before they reach the top of a set of metal stairs, every step ringing out in the small space.

They burst out into the cold night, rain pouring loudly on the leaves and roof and the small road that leads down to the parking lot.

They jog beside it, shoulders growing soaked, hair plastering to their foreheads.

“What happened back there?” Michael asks, a little breathless. “The sirens, all those people... are they, you know, are they still—“

“I used a drug called butyricol. Causes extreme memory loss, only approved for military applications. I found a stash in my father’s bunker and smuggled some here just in case we needed it.” Alex smiles a little, grimly. “Turned out, we did.”

But Michael is still confused. “Smuggled it where, exactly? Because I’ve, uh, _very_ thoroughly strip-searched you, and I never found anything like that.”

Alex swings his right arm, gesturing vaguely downward at his still-running feet. “In my leg. TSA never checks it as thoroughly as they should. Probably because they make the same mistake as those soldiers back there.”

“And that is?”

“Underestimating me.”

Michael laughs and has to stop running long enough to haul Alex in and kiss him, as hard as possible given how weak he’s suddenly feeling.

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re pretty fucking terrifying sometimes?”

Alex’s mouth just twitches up a tiny fraction.

Michael rakes his shaking fingers back through his hair, fat drops of water splashing to the ground behind him. “So when they wake up?”

"They won’t remember anything about either of us,” Alex says, tugging Michael’s elbow until they’re moving again. “At the dosage I used, they probably won’t remember anything that happened to them since last Halloween.” 

They reach the parking lot, hidden halfway down the mountain with dense green forest surrounding it. Michael glances around, trying to match Alex’s military-trained visual sweep, but mostly he’s just making himself dizzy.

Maybe he’s lost more blood than he realized.

He uses what feels like the last of his powers to unlock a work van they find parked on the far edge, Alex saying something about supplies and shelter and spotting a first aid kit under the passenger’s seat. Michael collapses on the back bumper and lets his eyes drift shut, floating along and trusting Alex to take care of him.

He always does.

It does feel nice to get out of the rain a little, listening to it pelting in metallic splats against the van’s roof as Alex sits beside him with his medical supplies and careful, assessing fingers. His palm is pressed flat over the left side of Michael’s chest, steadying them both; there’s a deep crease between his eyebrows as his careful fingers check Michael’s ribs.

“Probably cracked, definitely bruised, but I don’t think you’re in any immediate danger of a punctured lung. Still, it’s gonna hurt like hell for a while.”

Alex had clearly been trying to sound calm and clinical, and he’d mostly succeeded — right up until his voice had cracked over the word _hurt._

It summons Michael from the semi-conscious depths of exhaustion he’d been drifting through. He takes a careful breath, resting his hand over Alex’s on his chest, holding his palm firmly over his steady heartbeat.

“Hey. I’m okay.”

“That...none of that should have ever happened to you. It’s all my fault.”

“We made the decision together. We didn’t know.”

“But I should have,” Alex insists, bitter as black coffee.

Michael can sense the impending guilt spiral, Alex second and third and fourth guessing himself and his actions, the carelessness with which they approached this whole mission, the way they let their hearts lead when their heads should have been—

—and Michael doesn’t want to allow any of it.

“I’m a grown man and I make my own decisions. I decided on _you._ And I wouldn’t change a single thing about this trip, even if it has earned me a new scar or two.”

A tendon in Alex’s jaw flexes and Michael knows it won’t be that simple — old habits are hard to break, after all — but he’s at least gotten Alex re-focused for now.

He carefully peels off Michael’s still-sticky bloodstained shirt, gently cleaning each of his cuts and covering them with soft gauze.

Lightning forks across the sky; the answering thunder seems to rumble through his bones.

“Are they going to come after us?” Michael asks, unsure if he really wants an answer.

“No one will even _remember_ us,” Alex says, solid and certain; it loosens the knot of worry that bound itself tightly around Michael’s heart. “And I wiped all traces of us from the computers and cameras. They’ll wake up suspicious, but there isn’t a shred of evidence for them to use to track us. We’re safe.”

Michael sighs, relaxing under Alex’s confidence and caring touch for another minute before he remembers — “What about Barbara?”

Alex’s hands still; all of him does, like an animal facing a potential threat and unsure of whether to fight or flee.

“What about her?”

“You didn’t dose her with your memory wipe drug. When she comes to, she’ll remember everything.”

Alex takes a slow breath, watching Michael as if worried about some kind of head trauma. “I didn’t realize she was _going_ to come to,” Alex says, voice even and strangely cautious. “I thought you’d had to…”

“No,” Michael says quickly, although there is a specter of doubt haunting the scene as he replays it in his mind. He _had_ thrown her as hard and far as he could, and the _sound_ her head had made…

“No,” he says again. “I was just trying to knock her out. We’ve got to go back, dose her before she wakes up.”

Alex is still watching him, something unreadable in his eyes. “I don’t have any more butyricol.”

Panic flutters like a wounded bird in Michael’s chest, feathered wings wildly beating at his cracked ribs. “Then what do we do?”

Alex tapes the last of the gauze to the cut on Michael’s cheek, fingers still so soft against the sensitive skin.

“I’ll handle it,” he says with a squeeze of Michael’s fingers. “You just stay here, try to rest.”

And before Michael can say anything else, Alex has slipped out of the van and jogged away, swallowed up by the darkness and torrential rain.


	25. Chapter 25

_Get over here now and bring a tarp._

Michael reads the text and blinks, surprised for a second, before a slow grin carves itself across his face.

_I don’t know that we really have time for this,_ he types back, _but it sounds kinky. I’m on my way_.

Five minutes later, when he’s procured said tarp from the work van he’d been waiting in and met Alex at the spot deep in the woods where he’d dropped a pin, Michael is far less excited.

“Is that a body?”

“Yes,” Alex answers, spreading the tarp on the ground beside… _it_. The body. The bones and blood and brain that just an hour ago had a name.

Barbara.

Alex’s voice is a blade. “Help me roll her up.”

There’s a fuzzy white noise in Michael’s ears, like he’s standing too close to a whirling fan blade. Something is wrapped around his trachea; the trees around him seem to _melt_ , somehow, sliding a few degrees off center.

“Holy shit.”

Alex is out of breath and soaking wet; given how far they are from the hotel and the deep drag marks leading here, Michael would assume it’s from a combination of the rain and sweat.

He wonders if there’s a way to tell the difference, if he’d be able to take water samples from his skin and break down their composition enough to tell which was which, or if they all just blended together into a single saline solution—

Alex breaks into his rapidly spiraling panic.

“This would go a lot faster with some telekinetic assistance.”

“Alex,” Michael manages, raw and thick like he’s been gargling acid, “Alex, wait, why is there a _body_?”

Alex shifts to an awkward squat with a wince; his leg must be killing him. He sighs, but seems otherwise unaffected; this clearly isn’t the first body he’s dropped.

Michael knew that, intellectually. He _knew_. Alex is in the military, he went to war, he saw combat, he’s good with a gun...but it’s something different to see it. He knows it now somewhere beyond his brain; he knows it in his heart, in his _gut_.

Alex is a killer.

“She had taken you captive, she’d injured you, she’d threatened your safety and freedom and _life_. Her skin and clothes were covered with samples of your hair, your blood, she— Her existence could have ended everything for you.”

Alex holds his hands out to the side, palms forward, pleading a little; wet blood smeared across the right one shines in the waning moonlight. He’s suddenly not looking at Michael, not at all. “So I went to talk to her, see if we could reason or make a deal. She went for her gun instead; the rest was just my training and instincts.”

The mud is seeping into Michael’s jeans; he doesn’t remember how he got onto the ground.

“Oh my god.”

And now, for some reason, Alex is able to meet his eyes.

“I had to get her out of there, Michael. I heard cars pull up outside and if it was more soldiers then they couldn’t see the body. They might have been able to determine that alien powers had been used or find your DNA on her from when she beat you — and they’d be more motivated to seek answers if they knew one of their own had died.” Alex rubs his wrist across his forehead, pushing back the wet strands stuck to his skin. “She, she was a threat and I couldn’t— couldn’t let anything else happen to you.”

Alex is a killer for _him_.

“Holy shit,” Michael says again, hands falling away from his mouth, fingertips clawing into the earth beside him.

It’s saturated, the pile of rotting leaves on the forest floor giving way beneath his knees, mud staining the toes of his boots. But it feels good to have something else to focus on, to have something solid beneath him when everything else feels like it has been ripped away.

Fat drops splatter onto Michael’s cheeks; he doesn’t bother to wonder where they’re coming from.

He just summons up what little strength he has left in order to start shifting dirt out of the way; he wishes more than anything that this was the first time he’d ever done something like this.

Because mixed in with the rain and the tears and the mud and the horror are all the _memories —_ of the drifter in the desert, of the girls in the cave, of the death and secrecy that seem woven intrinsically into the fabric of his life.

There’s a clacking sound playing in his head, over and over, fast as a hummingbird’s wings; it takes him far too long to realize it’s the chattering of his own teeth.

He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel anything.

Lightning flashes in periodic bursts, a strobe light showing the growing grave in stop-motion; it takes so long, because the red Georgia mud is nearly impossible to dig through. It’s as if he’s carving a jagged, bleeding wound in the earth.

“Is this—“ Alex has been quietly, carefully wrapping Barbara’s body in the blue tarp Michael had brought — _Did Barbara like blue? Do top-secret alien-hunting soldiers have things as frivolous as favorite colors?_ — and Alex has to clear his throat to get the question out. “Is this going to change things between us? The way you feel about me?”

Michael blinks, stops. For the first time since he saw the body, he feels steady; he has a fixed point to guide his way.

“Alex.” There’s dirt streaked on Alex’s perfect cheek, the wet clay the color of old blood. “You did this for _me_. For my family. You were defending us, and then she forced you to defend yourself. All I feel is relief that you’re okay.”

Alex sighs and it’s as if his spine has become semiliquid, his head and shoulders dropping to stare down at the ground.

At the grave that’s finally complete.

They roll Barbara’s body into it together and cover it as quickly as possible; a bird has begun chirping and the sun is threatening to rise any minute.

When it’s finished they just hold each other, arms so tight it’s hard to breathe, rain lashing at Michael’s back.

How can it be the same night when he woke up in Alex’s arms with a ridiculous pie craving? How can things have gone so wrong so fast?

Thunder rumbles, but it sounds slightly different somehow, closer, more sustained — then half a second later Michael realizes it’s not thunder at all. It’s a much more familiar sound.

An engine.

He can’t see the headlights through the trees, nor does he have any idea who it is — could be a guest with a strange arrival time, could be the day shift coming in an hour early.

Or it could be soldiers who realized something had gone very wrong with their operation here. It could be backup.

It could be the reason they don’t escape.

Car doors slam; a deep voice shouts in the distance.

And then, barely audible over the storm, he hears something that might just be footsteps.

Headed straight for them.


	26. Chapter 26

“Run!”

Alex hisses the word, part plea, part demand.

“Not without you,” Michael answers, shaking his head, water spattering from his soaked curls.

Alex licks his lips, fingers curling into a fist at his side. “My leg is killing me and I’ll just drag you down. You’ve got a better chance at escaping on your own.”

The footsteps seem to grow closer, maybe; the storm and the woods have left Michael so disoriented he can’t be sure of anything.

Well, _almost_ anything.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “We’re a package deal now — I go where you go, I stay where you stay.”

Michael rubs at the spot on his arm where he’s carried a scar from a failed exorcism for far too long, knowing full well that it’s hardly the only relic from his time with the religious zealots. Not faith, not the kind they purported to have, but other remnants, bits and pieces of their beliefs that had clung to him like burs.

For instance, what he’d just said — it’s a bastardized version of a verse from the book of Ruth that he’d never intended to memorize, didn’t even know he _had_ , until it had surfaced in his mind unbidden the first time Alex brushed his lips over the scar in that shed.

_Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live._

He’s thought about it a hundred times over the years since; he’s never once considered saying it out loud.

Until now.

Maybe he’s concussed. Maybe he’s in shock.

Maybe he’s just finally being honest.

“Please, Michael, don’t be stupid,” Alex mutters, looking down at his prosthetic like it’s betraying him. “If they catch you—“

“The only way they’ll catch me is if we keep standing here debating. Now come on,” he says, taking Alex’s bloodstained hand.

Michael digs deep, dredging up a bit more of his already drained powers to help lift some of Alex’s weight from the prosthetic.

And then they’re moving as fast as possible but it still feels terribly slow, tripping over roots and getting tangled in thorny wild blackberry shrubs, the branches still bare and nearly invisible this early in spring.

Michael is scratched and bruised and bleeding; he feels like he’s fighting a losing battle against time and space itself.

But, somehow, the footsteps don’t seem to be behind them anymore.

Or maybe they never really were.

And so, because Michael is a fool who likes to participate in highly dangerous activities, he starts to actually have _hope._ Hope that maybe they’re going to get away. Hope that maybe they aren’t going to die here on this damn mountain. Hope that maybe, for once in their cursed lives, luck is on their side.

Michael only has a vague sense of which way to run in order to get back to the parking lot, his thoughts having already raced ahead to the brand new Porsche Boxster he’d spotted parked toward the front. He’s trying to calculate exactly how fast he could drive it around the sharply curving mountain roads, how many miles they could cover before assuming the owner had reported it stolen and they had to switch it out—

“Wait,” Alex pants, a hand on Michael’s arm.

Michael wheels around, mind still focused on escape, muscles screaming to _move_. “What the hell for?”

“We can’t leave yet.”

Michael takes a step closer, searching Alex’s eyes for blown pupils or glassiness. “Did you accidentally wipe your _own_ memory or something? Shit has officially gone sideways, Alex. We should have left here _two days ago_ ; we should have never come in the first place.”

“But the data I haven’t been able to download yet, the documents filed down in that subbasement — I haven’t had time to even scratch the surface of looking through it all. If we leave it all here, this… _all_ of this was for nothing.”

His eyes are scanning over Michael’s bruised face, his split lip, his cracked ribs.

But Michael is thinking of Barbara’s plastic-wrapped body resting in the fresh grave.

Alex’s face is raw, pleading, rain running in rivulets over his muddy cheeks. “It can’t…it just can’t have been for nothing.”

Michael swallows, feeling his throat bob, aware for not the first time of just how thin skin is, how soft, how vulnerable.

“Yeah, okay,” he finally agrees, more reluctant than he’s ever been. “But we have to be fast, and we have to be careful.”

They approach the hotel from the side, aiming for the laundry room entrance they used to sneak back in on their first night here, a lifetime ago. Every instinct Michael has is screaming to turn around, to get out while they can, that they’ve used up their limited allotment of luck already.

But Alex just keeps moving them forward.

A line of black SUVs are parked in the drive leading up to the main door, a dozen or so people wearing the standard hotel employee uniform of polo shirt and khaki pants lingering outside.

It seems otherwise quiet, but Michael knows that can’t be right. Alex had said they were clean, that they couldn’t be tracked, that the soldiers wouldn’t remember what had happened.

So then why have they apparently called in the cavalry? 

They slip through the laundry and snake down hallways, Alex starting and stopping with such frequent precision that Michael keeps his fingertips resting on the hard plane of Alex’s back so he gets some kind of warning of when to move and when not to.

And that’s all he’s focused on, Alex and the still somewhat fuzzy sensation in his head and the increasingly difficult task of putting one foot in front of the other. So he’s almost surprised when he finds himself back in the subbasement, staring down that hallway leading to the cell they’d kept him in, the one that should still be full of unconscious soldiers.

It’s completely empty. Those SUVs out front must have come to evacuate them.

The fuzziness in his head becomes _deafening._

But Alex isn’t paying attention to the hallway, or the missing soldiers, or even Michael. He’s gone perfectly still, focusing solely on the large monitor mounted on the far wall, a countdown flashing across it in enormous red numbers.

And then an electronic voice comes over the PA system, female and pleasant and utterly at odds with the words being spoken.

“Detonation in fifteen minutes.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Please tell me you know how to defuse a bomb,” Michael asks, quiet terror darkening his voice.

The countdown clock just dipped below fifteen minutes, red warning lights now flashing from the ceiling. Far above them, Alex can faintly hear the fire alarms blaring throughout the hotel and can only hope the guests are streaming out into the safety of the purplish predawn sky.

Alex shakes his head in a slow, smooth arc, absurdly feeling as if any sudden or jarring motion might accidentally blow them up ahead of schedule. “Ordnances weren’t exactly my specialty. You?”

Michael laughs, the sound abrasive and abrupt. “I’d have to be able to find the damn thing first. This is just the warning system, and I don’t even know how it got activated—“

“Most likely it’s set as default. Every few hours someone would have had to input a code or flipped a switch or something in order to maintain status quo; otherwise the activation sequence would start. That way if the facility was ever compromised—“

“—It’d blow and take all its secrets with it.” Michael drags a hand over his chin, his expression 1,379 miles and so many months away, back in Caulfield — the same alarms are flashing, the same destruction impending. “Gotta give it to those Project Shepherd soldiers — they’re consistent bastards.”

And Alex is already moving, grabbing a leather briefcase from beneath someone’s desk, cramming files and flash drives and anything that looks remotely useful into it.

“Take as much as you can,” he says, breathless and panicky — the countdown clock is down to thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds.

“Alex,” Michael says, suddenly right in front of him, hands gentle but firm on Alex’s wrists. “We have enough. We have to go.”

Alex pulls free, grabbing a laptop, then another stack of files. His leg is _throbbing_ and his heart is pounding and there’s a sound like a thousand hornets buzzing between his ears.

“But there’s so much here, Guerin, there’s so much still to learn — my dad knew about you and this facility recognized what you were on sight. What if they gave that information to someone else, what if it’s _out there_ —“

“None of that matters if we blow up.”

Alex can feel tears stinging his eyes and he blinks furiously, a toxic stew of rage for his father and disgust with the military and disappointment in himself boiling just beneath the surface of his skin.

“Okay, so go. Get out of here, make sure the hotel is evacuating and get somewhere safe. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Not gonna happen, sweetheart,” Michael murmurs, soft and close, fingertips rubbing soothing circles over Alex’s pounding pulse. He smells like sweat and blood and rain and _home_ ; it’s the most instantaneous, viscerally grounding thing Alex has ever experienced.

“But they could know about Max and Isobel,” he protests. “They could know about your _family_.”

“Alex.” Michael’s hands reach up to hold his face, thumbs swiping softly across his cheekbones, catching a tear Alex hadn’t realized had fallen. “ _You_ are my family too, and I am not leaving you. Not ever, and certainly not now, to blow up in some crazy alien hunting compound that we have no business being in any longer.”

Alex blinks, remembering Caulfield, remembering how desperate he’d been to get Michael to leave. How he’d agreed once his mother said she loved him. Gave him permission to go.

“I love you, Alex. Let’s go. Please.”

Alex’s fingers itch for the nearest keyboard, to try to download one last batch of data, but his heart can’t deny Michael. Not anything, and certainly not this.

The bag on his shoulder is heavy, and there’s at least a terabyte that has uploaded to the cloud from the device he installed in the wall. It will be enough.

It will have to be.

“Okay.” Alex nods, as much as he can with Michael still holding his face, and tightens his grip on the shoulder strap. “Let’s go.”

Behind them the clock continues its countdown; red lights sweep in regular circles overhead. But now they’re running, Alex limping so badly that every step is a near-stumble.

They reach the stairs and it seems to get a little easier somehow; he wonders if Michael is using his already taxed-out powers to help him along.

They’re breathing hard, sweat beading on both their brows as they fight their way back above ground.

Reaching the lobby, they find the smoke alarm continuing to wail without a soul in sight to hear it, the evacuation clearly complete.

Alex feels a bit of the pressure in his chest ease, grateful that at least he doesn’t have to worry that their foolish, fumbling mission is going to cost innocent lives.

At that, an image of Barbara flashes through his mind.

He’d seen the crushed state of her skull when he’d first stepped into that holding cell to rescue Michael; her head had burst like an overripe melon when Michael had thrown her against the wall.

Alex had always known he was only going back to retrieve her body.

But he hadn’t been lying when he’d said that she was covered in evidence that could have exposed Michael and needed to be disposed of; he’d hewed as close to the truth as possible out there at her makeshift gravesite.

The only deviation had been that he wasn’t the one who’d been forced to kill her.

But it was an easy lie, practically handed to him by the fact that Michael was too deep in shock to realize what he’d done.

After all, it’s not like Alex hasn’t killed before; he knows all too well what it would mean to burden Michael with that weight. And there’s no reason for it. Not when she was far from innocent, and her death was not unprovoked — she was simply a casualty of war.

Michael would have nothing to feel guilty for, even if he knew the truth of what he’d done.

But Alex knows he’d torture himself with it all the same.

So he carefully puts the memory aside, in the same dark corner of his mind where he stores such things.

And he won’t look at it again.

Instead, he’ll focus on the mind-numbingly painful experience of running on his overtaxed leg across the cavernous lobby, their footsteps echoing through the empty space in time with the sirens as they streak past the still-cheerily-burning stone fireplace and out the wide open front door.

The SUVs aren’t yet on the move, the soldiers still patrolling the hotel’s perimeter. Two of them— including the one that caught them in the refrigerator and recognizes them immediately — try to grab Alex and Michael as they burst out of the hotel, but Michael makes them trip over their own feet.

It’s a subtle move, and Alex isn’t sure if Michael went that route to protect his secret or because he simply doesn’t have the strength to do more.

But it’s enough. It bought them a few feet of space, just the amount of time they needed in order to race off toward the nearest parking lot while the soldiers scramble to get back into the SUVs.

A line of cars snakes down the mountain away from the hotel, guests fleeing as fast and far as possible.

Michael races through it, unlocking the first parked car they see — a low-riding white Mitsubishi with paint splatter decals on the side and a ridiculous fin on the back — and starts the engine. Brain-melting electronica immediately blares out of the speakers but Michael doesn’t take the time to turn it down.

Alex decides to leave it; maybe it will motivate Michael to drive even faster.

As it is he’s weaving in and out of cars, clearing bumpers by mere inches. It’s terrifying and a little nauseating but every time he pulls it off he puts another car length between them and the SUVs, another obstacle for the bullets that are embedding in their trunk but blessedly missing the tires somehow.

They reach the turnoff for the main road and Michael jerks the wheel to the right, probably just because it’s the opposite direction of most of the traffic.

One enormous black SUV breaks out of the pack and comes roaring after them, occupants invisible through the darkly tinted windows.

The sun is breaking, pale yellow behind the ridge, the trees beginning to coalesce into individual shapes instead of just hulking dark masses. The storm has stopped but the road is still wet, wind making branches dance and whistling through the passenger’s side window, which won’t quite roll all the way up.

The SUV keeps appearing and disappearing in their rearview mirror, the Mitsubishi gaining a little ground with every curve they’re able to whip around without the same high rollover risk.

But there’s a straight, downhill section ahead and they don’t have enough of a lead.

The SUVs lights grow closer, blinding as they pour through their back windshield, lighting up the left side of Alex’s face as he turns to look at Michael.

Michael just grits his teeth and stares into the rearview mirror. He’s pale and sweating; Alex thinks he might be only a few minutes from passing out.

“Hold on,” Michael mutters.

Alex already has one hand clinging to the door, the other gripping the center console.

“Why?”

“Just in case I’m not strong enough to pull this off.”

And Alex figures it out half a second before it happens, Michael’s eyes narrowing as he uses his powers to jerk the SUV’s wheel, sending them careening wildly off the road at top speed, bouncing down the side of the mountain.

It’s a relatively gradual slope and covered with large trees that will stop them from falling all the way down, but still sharp enough that they won’t make it back up to the road without a tow truck.

It was the perfect move; Michael is grinning despite his obvious pain.

But Alex doesn’t begin to relax — he knows better by now. He keeps his head on a swivel, checking their rear view, peering down every side road, just waiting for the next group of soldiers to make their move. 

Even so, twenty-seven seconds later he’s shocked into stillness when an enormous orange fireball consumes the mountaintop behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much those of you who are still commenting -- it means so much. 💖


	28. Chapter 28

“In my defense, I thought this would go a _lot_ more smoothly,” Michael says, his foot still holding the accelerator nearly to the floor despite the fact that they’ve been clear of any obvious tail for nearly ten minutes.

“Which part?” Alex asks, beginning to tick items off on his fingers. “The fake marriage, the espionage, the explosion, or the fact that we’re trying to make a getaway in a toy-sized car that smells like Cheetos and feet?”

“Speaking of which,” Michael says, breathing a little easier with every mile that ticks past on the odometer (despite the admittedly awful odor), “nothing about this car is exactly subtle. We should ditch it, soon; we probably need to get off the roads altogether for a little while.”

Alex sighs. “I’m not going to be good on my feet any time soon, I’m afraid.” He’s rubbing at his bad leg, and has been ever since the hotel exploded.

So Michael has been coming up with plans that factor that issue in. Some are slightly more absurd than others (he doubts there’s a spare Zeppelin lying around in someone’s barn, for instance) but one of the better ideas presents itself in just another minute, as he whips around a bend in the road and sees a dirty old railroad trellis running across the space between mountains high above.

“That’s okay,” he says. “I have a plan.”

“Oh god,” Alex mutters. “The last time you told me that you spent all night flirting with the front desk girl and got us sent to couple’s counseling.”

“Well,” Michael says, risking a glance away from the road to toss a salacious smirk Alex’s way, “that worked out okay in the end, didn’t it?”

“Depends on which part you consider the end,” Alex answers, deadpan, but Michael can see the hint of a pleased glimmer leaking into his dark eyes.

Ten minutes later when they’ve ditched the car down an embankment, covering it with fallen limbs and leaves as best they can, and are stumbling through the thick woods for what feels like the twelfth time that morning, neither of them are feeling pleased anymore.

Not at all.

Alex’s arm is hooked around Michael’s neck, Michael’s arm around his waist and shaking under the effort of supporting his weight. Every uneven step jostles Alex into Michael’s cracked ribs, sending white hot licks of pain up his side, but they have to keep going.

It’s not far to the tracks now.

They break out into a narrow strip cut through the trees, the ballast crunching under their boots as they step close to the rail. Michael stares down it toward a soft rumble like far off thunder.

“Do you trust me?”

Their faces are close, streaked with rain and mud and soot and blood, but Alex’s eyes are steady. “Of course,” he answers, soft and even. “With my life.”

Michael sighs and looks back toward the rapidly approaching freight train. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The locomotive roars past and Michael sweeps Alex up in his arms. It’s stupid to think about how good it feels to be able to do this right now, to touch and hold and love Alex without fear, but he can’t help it. He’s about to launch them both at a train barreling sixty miles an hour while injured and exhausted — so he’s going to enjoy the small things while he can. Like Alex’s hair ruffling in the breeze and the comforting anchor of his arms around his neck; the smell of his skin and the warm, solid strength of him, how _alive_ he makes Michael feel.

It’s good. Despite everything, it’s all just so _good_.

He closes his eyes for just a second, letting it wash over him—

And then Michael swallows and forces himself to focus.

He’s watching the cars pass, letting the rhythm of it settle into his bones, rocking onto his toes at the end of each one.

The train consists of a seemingly endless line of identical autoracks. Through the perforated metal sides, he can see the outlines of the cars parked inside.

It’s lucky; he’d much rather be riding in one of these than a filthy old boxcar or a hopper full of coal.

Okay — deep breath.

Three.

Two.

One.

And then he leaps.

It’s a combination of his powers and brute strength and sheer dumb luck, but it works. He’s standing on the thin coupling joining two cars together, his arms around Alex, Alex’s fingers stretched out and clinging to the back door for both of them.

“It’s locked,” he shouts, and Michael nods. He’d expected as much, and it shouldn’t be too difficult of a barrier — just a few extra seconds of precariously balancing as he picks it with his telekinesis. But the sound of the wheels clacking over the rail is almost deafening, the wind tearing at his hair and shirt and eyes; Alex’s arms are shaking as he holds onto the door and he wonders if this was a terrible idea after all—

And then the door swings open. Not far, not completely, but just enough for them to slip inside. They’re greeted by relative quiet and a cool breeze and two levels of brand new cars parked nose to bumper; this particular one is packed with shiny Dodge Caravans.

Michael sets Alex on his feet and closes the doors behind them; they open the back hatch of the nearest minivan and practically collapse on top of one another on the back bumper.

The van is light blue and has that new-car smell; it strangely makes Michael miss Isobel with a sudden deep pang.

He wonders for the first time if he’ll ever see her again.

At first they simply sit, shoulder to shoulder, staring in dead-eyed shock and exhaustion at nothing in particular, the dim light shining through the perforations in the metal walls gentle on their stinging eyes.

“There’s no way they can follow us now,” Michael says, dully. “This train is moving too fast for anyone without my powers to jump aboard.”

“They could just grab us the next time the train stops,” Alex answers, just as flat. “The kind of resources that must be at their disposal…it would be easy.”

“Then we’ll get off before it stops. Pick a spot you like and I’ll get us off the same way we got on.”

Alex is quiet for a long time, probably running through all kinds of scenarios, calculating probabilities, developing backup plan after backup plan.

Michael dozes off for a minute or two, cheek smushed into Alex’s muscular shoulder; he wakes when he feels the rumble of Alex’s voice beneath him.

“Yeah, that could work.”

“Really?” Michael asks, sitting up with an enormous yawn that leaves his mouth curled into an exhausted attempt at a grin. “That’s it? You’re not even going to make a joke about the fact that I said I could _get us off_ or anything?”

Alex raises an eyebrow, smile small but fond. “That’s really more your style than mine.”

“That’s not what you were saying in bed earlier.”

Something dark flashes across Alex’s face, some memory Michael instinctively knows better than to prod at.

Not right now. Not while everything is still so fresh and raw.

“I think…” Alex tugs at his damp, mud-stained collar. “I think I just need to get some rest.”

So they fumble around with the van’s back seats for a while until they figure out how to make them disappear into the floorboard, creating one long stretch of scratchy black carpet to lie down on. Alex scoots in close to Michael and they both fall onto their backs, Alex pillowing his head on Michael’s chest.

Michael knows he’s holding Alex too tightly, his clinging hands probably leaving finger-shaped outlines against his skin, but he can’t seem to stop. And Alex doesn’t seem to care; if anything, he tightens his own grip, the two of them winding around one another as if trying to merge into one solid whole.

The van floor is hard and itchy but they’re sleep-deprived and hungry and utterly wrung out; between that and the soothing, rocking motion of the train, they’re sound asleep in mere minutes.


	29. Chapter 29

“I’m trying very hard not to see all this as a metaphor for my life,” Alex mutters, examining the charred remains of the marshmallow he accidentally set on fire; beside him, Michael laughs a little around a mouthful of his perfectly melted s’more.

They’re about 1,200 miles and two days of haphazard driving northwest of the hotel — Michael has lost track of what state they’re in, but he’d guess it’s one of the Dakotas. They’re spending tonight in a small, overgrown campsite in a place that gives a new definition to the phrase _middle of nowhere_.

It doesn’t look like Georgia here; it’s flatter and the earth is dirt colored instead of that angry reddish-orange clay. But it doesn’t look like home either, not with the leafy trees and green pastureland. They’re in some sort of no-man’s land in between, a fugitive’s limbo.

Parked behind them is the pickup truck they’d bought off a young woman in a Kohl’s parking lot outside of Des Moines; it’s old and not in the best of shape and therefore feels like home to Michael, especially once he found a blanket and bedroll stashed in the back.

(He’d called Isobel from a burner phone they’d bought at a gas station back in Tennessee and made sure the owner was generously and anonymously compensated for it.)

(Isobel had asked when he was coming home. He’d told her she and Max might want to take an extended vacation until they could be sure how much Project Shepherd knew about them.)

(He’d told her Alex was working on finding that out.)

(He’d told her he wished he had a real answer.)

“Jus’ need practice,” Michael mumbles around his food, putting a fresh marshmallow on his stick and handing it to Alex. His ring catches the flickering firelight — neither of them have taken them off, because neither of them have wanted to. There’s a comfort in its small weight now, a hope and promise instead of the heavy burden of a lie. “Gotta get it close enough to feel the fire but not get burned.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “We’ve never been very good at figuring out where that is.”

Michael leans into his shoulder a little. “I think we’re getting better at it.”

He can feel Alex’s breath catch slightly beside him, can smell the faint scents of his soap and laundry detergent and aftershave. Firelight dances across his face, painting his smooth skin in oranges and reds, and he’s so beautiful that Michael actually _aches_.

He touches Alex’s chin and turns him enough to softly kiss the corner of his mouth, tasting the tiny bit of melted chocolate stuck there.

He was going to leave it at that, knowing the last couple of days of near-constant running have taken their toll, that they’re exhausted and scared and more than a little lost.

But Alex leans in closer, parting his lips and sliding his tongue into Michael’s mouth; a few enthusiastic seconds later he’s dropping his marshmallow stick into the dirt so he can hold Michael’s neck with both hands, thumbs pressing into the tender spot at the back of his jaw and directing him where he wants him.

Michael smiles a little in spite of himself, the expression moving his lips out of place against Alex’s.

No matter; Alex has a contingency plan.

(Because _of course_ Alex has a contingency plan.)

He kisses his way across Michael’s lightly bearded jaw and down his neck, the tip of his tongue sweeping at the exact spot where he knows it will make Michael _groan_ —

And then Michael is getting up and moving them both into the back of the truck.

They hop up on the lowered tailgate and scoot to the back of the bed, the soft sleeping bag beneath them, a scratchy wool blanket hastily pulled over top.

And Alex’s hands are greedy and rushed as they so often are, like he thinks this is something he doesn’t deserve, like taking what he wants is such a foreign concept that he still can’t quite believe it’s true, that Michael’s love is something he can just _have,_ just because he exists.

So Michael slows him down, taking his time to kiss Alex’s ear and eyebrow and cheekbone; he drags his mouth over the love line on Alex’s palm and kisses every single one of his fingertips; he sucks a tiny mark into the soft, thin skin of his wrist, Alex’s pulse pounding beneath his lips. His finger traces abstract sigils just beneath the waist of Alex’s jeans as his mouth moves to the hollow of Alex’s throat, drawing a low, pleased hum that vibrates through his lips.

He leaves their shirts on because it’s still near-freezing at night this far north and they’re too far from the fire now to feel much of its warmth, but he slides his hands up the hem of Alex’s newly acquired sweatshirt and brushes his fingertips up Alex’s taut abs to his chest, over peaked nipples he knows from experience are flushed a dusty pink.

Alex sighs, like he’s relaxing for the first time in _days,_ and Michael tries to breathe it in, to hold that feeling in his chest and keep it safe and warm.

He pops the button on Alex’s jeans and lowers the zipper with a long, slow drag, knuckles ghosting over the hardness underneath.

And Alex is reaching for him too, rolling onto his side so they’re facing one another; their bodies are two parallel lines forming an equal sign, a million tiny wrongs adding up to one perfect right.

They shimmy out of their jeans and underwear just enough to get at what they really want, slowly rolling their synchronized hips as they fuck into their joined hands.

They move slow and sleepy, enjoying every drawn-out drag of skin, every lazy kiss, every warm brush of breath exhaled into the cold night air.

The stars watch over them, the night close and quiet and all theirs; it’s so familiar. The two of them doing this in the bed of an old truck, hiding from the world — it’s as if time has rewound by a decade. Except everything is so much _better_ now than it was back then, more solid and defined, as if they’re tracing over a pencil sketch in permanent ink.

The orgasm washes over Michael peacefully, like slipping into a warm bath. Alex follows soon after, whispering Michael’s name into the crook of his shoulder.

They’ll have to switch out the blanket they sleep under tonight, but that’s alright.

It all is, amazingly, in spite of everything that’s happened. It’s all alright.

Michael has no idea why the universe suddenly decided to start being kind to him, but he knows better than to question it. He just scratches his blunt nails through the coarse hair trailing down from Alex’s navel, relishing the fact that they’re here and safe and warm and _together_.

It doesn’t get much better than this, no matter where on this planet (or any other) they happen to be.

After they’ve wiggled back into their pants and retrieved a dry blanket, Michael sits propped up against the truck’s back window; his ribs are still aching but slowly healing, his legs are stretched out long before him, and Alex is dozing on his lap. The campfire burns on, flames twisting and dancing — it snaps and sends out a shower of sparks, smoke billowing in the breeze before disappearing against the darkness of the sky.

And he knows there’s a good chance he’s being hunted, that he might not ever get back to Roswell or any semblance of the life he had once imagined for himself. But, for the first time in a decade, Michael watches smoke rise and expand and dissipate without wishing he could disappear along with it.

He’s perfectly happy right where he is.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, at the end of the 30 days! Thanks to this prompt list for providing the opening line for each chapter, and thank _you_ for coming along on the ride — I hope you enjoyed it. ❤️

“Careful, don’t drop—“

“I’m never gonna drop you, Alex.’”

Michael is secretly pleased his voice sounds normal and not at all like he’s carrying nearly six feet of solid muscle in his arms.

(And sure, he’s been doing more than the usual amount of physical labor lately and he might be using his powers to cheat a tiny bit, but still. Impressive.)

He crosses the threshold of their tiny rental cottage and carefully sets Alex back on his feet.

“This is the sixth place we’ve lived in as many weeks,” Alex says, “it’s really not necessary to keep treating me like a new bride. We’re not even really married.”

Michael looks at him, at his messy dark hair and faded jeans and flushed cheeks and hideous sweater. He loves him so much it _hurts_.

“Yeah, well,” Michael answers, voice rough and low, “you’re still wearing my ring, aren’t you?”

Alex spins it between his right thumb and forefinger. “Always.”

It’s so honest and comes so easy; there’s suddenly something thick in Michael’s throat and he has to turn away.

Instead, he takes in the cottage’s white walls and blue decor, everything charmingly beach-themed and secondhand. The place reminds him of an old married couple, its creaking floors and scarred butcher-block counters showing decades of wear and weather, but also care and love.

They’re most of the way up a steep hillside, the ocean crashing against the Oregon coast close enough to see and hear. Everything here is strange to Michael, making him feel more like an alien than he ever has before. The damp air and green, dripping forests, the relatively cool temperatures even though it’s summer, the way the sun seems so much weaker here, even on the rare cloudless days.

(It rained for three days straight last week; he’d been so damp and miserable he was convinced mildew had begun to grow in the crack of his ass.)

He misses his desert.

But he’s found a job he likes well enough, repairing boats and scraping barnacles down at the Astoria Port. His boss doesn’t ask questions about his obviously fake ID and he gets to come home every day a little leaner, a little tanner, his curls wind-tousled and smelling like the sea.

Best part is coming home to _Alex_ , who is always wearing a week-old beard and one of several godawful cable-knit sweaters he’d picked up at a thrift store back in Idaho; he sits hunched over his laptop at whatever kitchen table they’re using that week, eyes bloodshot with a cup of coffee forgotten at his elbow as he methodically works his way through all the data they stole from the hotel.

And every day Michael feels the small spark of hope ignite in his chest; it’s completely unbidden and just for a second, but it burns so hot, shining its bright flame on just how badly he wants to go back to Roswell—

—and then Alex looks up from the screen with a small, sad smile and the spark dies down, merging with the glowing embers of love and faith that he carries with him always.

They’ve learned some things over the last few months, the most significant of which is that the hotel was an insular branch of Project Shepherd, run by a general too paranoid to communicate with anyone outside the facility. Which means that no information about Alex and Michael would have made it off the mountain before it exploded; their only worries now are the soldiers who chased their car and might have caught glimpses of their faces.

Michael had called Isobel and Max and told them it was safe to go back home. Alex had looked at him after he’d hung up with an indecipherable expression and said, “It’s probably safe for us to go home too, you know.”

Michael had just pressed a kiss to his temple and murmured, “I’m already home.”

They’ll go back, eventually. When it feels right, when it’s all finished and so safe that they can begin building the life they really want, the one with a house and dogs and vows that they exchange under a cloudless desert sky with everyone they love watching.

They talk about it sometimes, wrapped around each other in the middle of their shared bed. They discuss where they’ll go on their honeymoon and what to plant in their garden; they playfully bicker over what names they’ll give the dogs or what kind of mattress they’ll buy.

(Alex spends a solid seven minutes lobbying for a _water bed_ like a complete _monster_ before breaking down and cackling over the betrayed look on Michael’s gullible face.)

They spend hours like this, talking about the life they want, the life they’ll _share_ — and it’s not dreams or hypotheticals or vague ideas of an amorphous someday.

It’s plans. It’s concrete and steel and tattoo ink; it’s real and permanent. It’s going to happen.

But until then, they live in a happy state of limbo, a small penance for the sense that it was their carelessness that got them into this mess, and it isn’t over until they can be damn sure they aren’t going to drag anything back home with them.

So they carry on with their little routines. At night they grill fish and vegetables and eat on their small patio, then cuddle in a hammock under a chunky knit blanket. Alex stares up at the stars sometimes; Michael rarely does now. For the first time in his life, he’s less intrigued by the possibilities of what may be out there and far more interested in what’s right in front of him.

Like tonight. It’s mostly the same as every other night, Michael coming home from work, Alex in the kitchen — but tonight he’s left the laptop running some sort of indecipherable program while he gets started on cooking dinner. Italian, it smells like.

And that would be exciting enough — but then Michael notices Alex is wearing an apron exactly like the one from the cooking class back at the hotel.

_Just_ the apron.

And Michael knows immediately that dinner is going to wind up ruined, a casualty of his pressing need to bend Alex over the kitchen counter and do him right then and there.

He fucks into Alex slow and deep and steady, his hands tangled in the apron strings, his head dropped forward and pressing open-mouthed kisses over the knobs of Alex’s spine.

“I love you,” he whispers over and over in a hot chant, as if he can brand the words on Alex’s skin and sear them into his bones, make sure that he’ll carry them with him from now on, that he’ll feel loved in the very deepest, darkest depths of himself. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

After, when they’ve sent the charred remains of their dinner down the garbage disposal and opened every window in the cottage to stop the smoke detectors from screaming; when they’re tangled up on the couch in a naked pile of contentment, a small electronic _ping_ sounds from somewhere in the kitchen.

“Ugh, what now?” Michael grumbles, burying his face further into the crook of Alex’s shoulder. “You set one little pan of chicken parm on fire and the appliances never forgive you—“

“Nope,” Alex answers, springing up with far more energy than Michael feels like he should have after such a mind-blowing orgasm. “That sound had nothing to do with the inferno that was our dinner. That one was for me.”

He’s settling in at his laptop on the kitchen table, talking over his shoulder. “I’ve been running decryption software on a part of the data that I haven’t been able to make any sense out of. I’m hoping it’s going to give us something useful, some way we can make progress toward eliminating the last remnants of Project Shepherd and finally going home.”

Michael sighs, soft and a little sad, as he sits up enough to look at Alex over the back of the sofa. “We’re gonna get ‘em, Alex.”

He’s said it dozens of times over the last few months, every time they reach a setback or get hit with a particularly powerful wave of homesickness. So he knows what to expect. He knows that Alex will say something sensible, something hedging their bets and managing expectations, because that’s what’s happened every single time.

Except this one.

This time, Alex spins to him with an honest-to-god _grin_ and gestures at his laptop screen. Michael can’t tell what’s on it, but he doesn’t need to.

The only answer he needs is right there on Alex’s face.

“Yeah, Michael. We definitely are.”

* * *

They get married for real sixteen months later in their own backyard with a total of twelve people in attendance, two facts for which Isobel swears she’ll never forgive them.

The only thing hanging over their heads now is the clear, bright New Mexican sky — the threat of Project Shepherd is just a distant memory.

Max cries when they recite their vows, but Michael can’t really tease him about it since pretty much everyone else does, too. (Including Rosa, although the only evidence is her eyeliner becoming slightly smudgier than usual; everyone knows she’d rather die — again — than admit to shedding a few happy tears.)

Rescue mutts Ripley and Astro serve as adorable ring bearers, but they’re utterly unnecessary. The grooms have been wearing their rings nonstop for nearly two years now — ever since putting them on for what they’d thought would be the biggest lie of their lives.

Turns out, it was never really a lie at all.


End file.
